


bloodletting

by forfree



Category: None - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Major Violence, kinda like this one movie i watched but not quite!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2018-09-26 00:00:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 22,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9852821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forfree/pseuds/forfree
Summary: Jordan can't find his way. All he knows how to do is fight his way out of bad situations and stay on edge until the next one comes.





	1. for i am uncaught and still swimming alone in the lake

Jordan’s heart hammers away in his chest as he stands in front of a lonesome cabin in the middle of nowhere. The only things surrounding him are trees, leafless, looming above his head, branches rattling in the wind, and beaten paths of hikers and wanderers who’ve run through the same place before him. The only thing guiding him is adrenaline, fear, and the moon. He’s out of places to hide, and he can’t take running anymore, so he goes with the least rational and most dangerous option he has and kicks the window of the cabin in.

 

He climbs through the window, wincing, and he can’t tell if it’s more because of the shard of broken glass that cuts him on his side or the broken rib he’s sure he has. He looks around the humble home, the moonlight glowing gently through the windows lighting up the room he’s in just enough to allow him to see that he’s in the kitchen.

 

Standing in the room allows him to wonder how many days it’s been since he’s had decent food. He can’t remember.

 

“Слава Богу,” he says as he rummages through the refrigerator. He finds a rotisserie chicken and a bottle of water, sitting down at the table in the kitchen to eat. He picks at it with his hands, quietly eating, silently thanking whatever god is listening for giving him a moment of peace.

 

He has to hold back from eating the whole thing; he at least leaves a leg for the poor house owner who has to see a broken window and whatever else in the coming hours. He’s putting the food away and trying to collect this thoughts when his sensitive ears pick up on footsteps that are supposed to be light, but aren’t light enough. He also hears shouting from police and growling from their dogs. He doesn’t sweat the first sound as much, though; he just takes a seat at the table and drinks his water, his back to whoever’s approaching.

 

When they get close enough for him to be able to assault and vice versa, he shoots up, chair tumbling to the side. He turns around, and he can’t make out much of their face. He swiftly punches them in the cheek, and when he hears what sounds like a woman moaning in pain, he doesn’t skip a beat. When he’s lifting them up off of the ground, he knows they have to be a woman because they have a smaller frame and a shapely figure, and when he clamps his hand around their mouth, lip gloss smears on it. He holds the woman’s arms around her back and talks lowly in her ear as she struggles, writhing around in his grip forcefully.

 

“I am not here to hurt, I promise you,” Jordan knows his English is broken, but he knows that phrase better than any other one. He hears the police squad nearing the cabin and he speaks quickly. “Help me, help you. Bedroom.”

 

The woman starts panicking even more than before.

 

“Need to hide,” Jordan hurriedly says, “will not hurt. Cooperate.”

 

The woman must realize that either she can’t fight back or that she can trust Jordan, because she reluctantly walks him to her room. He lets her go and she beats on his chest somewhat weakly, and he flinches away from her to make her feel as if she’s done something useful. She elbows him, and when he doubles over in pain, he lets out a ragged shout at the pain that shoots through his ribcage. Despite his pain, he drags himself over to her bed, strips until he’s down to his boxers, and shoves his clothes under the bed before he gets under the covers. If someone looking for him were to come in- he hopes at least- they wouldn’t recognize him because nobody had really seen his face.

 

“What the fuck are you doing?” the woman screams hysterically, dark hair piled in a messy bun atop her head moving as she does it, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

 

“No screaming, please,” Jordan says quietly. He can feel a headache begin to pound away at his head, and he’s not above begging for a moment of silence.

 

The woman’s chest rises and falls with every labored breath she takes in and she backs up, keeping eye contact with him as she opens a drawer behind her and fishes around in it for something. Jordan knows she’s trying to pull a weapon on him, and if he weren’t in such a shitty situation at the moment, he’d have a hearty laugh at it.

 

“Do not, please,” Jordan asks of her, sitting up in bed.

 

As he expected, a gun is pulled on him.

 

“Get out of my bed, motherfucker,” she says, her voice and her hands shaky. Jordan sits in the same spot and looks at her. Her voice falters even more, and he knows his defiance is making her confidence level lower a bit. “Now!”

 

Just to save himself from further trouble, he slowly puts his hands up and gets out of the bed.

 

“Get on the floor,” she orders.

 

Jordan obliges, kneeling on the floor and putting his hands behind his head.

 

She moves closer to him, kicking him in the ribs. He cries out in pain and stays on the ground, groaning and holding his side; the woman’s face softens. She tentatively kneels by his side.

 

“Why are you here?” she asks, gentle yet firm.

 

“People look for me,” Jordan answers quietly.

 

She questions him in another language that sounds everything and nothing like his own; she most likely assumed he spoke it and not Russian.

 

“Pу́сский,” Jordan replies, confused. He grimaces at the pain he feels whenever he draws in a breath.

 

The woman frowns. “I don't understand.”

 

Footsteps that belong to many determined cops beat closet and closer to the cabin. Jordan tries not to panic. He drags himself back into bed and draws the covers up to his stomach.

 

“You, my wife. I am asleep,” Jordan says. “Yes?”

 

The woman doesn't quite understand what he's saying for a minute, but eventually she does, and she nods. She realizes just in time, too, because barking dogs and hurried knocks are at her door. She puts her gun back in the drawer and answers the door. Jordan pretends to be asleep, not flinching at the pain felt at the cover grazing against the deep cut in his side.

 

He hears faint conversation in the front room before there's sudden protest from the woman, cops marching into the bedroom, and flashlights shining into his face.

 

“Get up! Get up!” they shout, pushing him and using their batons to jab at him violently.

 

He sits up in bed, feigning fear and tiredness. The woman is at the doorway giving him a nervous look.

 

“Honey, what’s going on?” Jordan begins to simultaneously sign and mouth, putting on a confused expression.

 

The woman looks astounded and slightly amused as well, but she fixes her face before the police turn around.

 

“These… kind men are looking for a runner,” she mouths to him before turning back to the police and speaking out loud. “My, uh, husband’s been resting, I doubt he knows anything. He’s also deaf.”

 

The men eye Jordan suspiciously, discussing quietly among themselves for a minute before stating their apologies to the woman, ignoring him, and leaving. He lets his head fall back on the headboard with a loud _thunk,_ groaning in pain.

 

The woman wears a look of numbed shock on her face, her shoulders not as straight as they were before. Jordan didn’t know what to say to ease her mind, but he felt rude not saying anything.

 

“You are harboring fugitive,” Jordan says.

 

The woman jumps at Jordan suddenly speaking. “Figured I wasn’t exactly dealing with a model citizen when you broke into my house, ate my food, and brought the police with you.”

 

“Am not citizen,” Jordan answers.

 

“I shoulda guessed,” she says, laughing. Her laugh doesn’t make her sound like she finds anything amusing.

 

A cop shouts from outside the bedroom window and Jordan groans, getting up and fishing the woman’s gun out of her drawer. He tells the woman to stay put and goes to the front door, jumping back when it’s kicked down. The police officer runs at him, and since his mobility is somewhat limited by the pain he’s in, he shoots him between the eyes effortlessly.

 

The woman runs into the room despite his orders and lets out a shrill scream when she sees the cop’s body lying on the floor.

 

“Hush,” Jordan tells her calmly. More flashlights begin to flash, beams shining on him through the broken window. He grabs the woman, his arm across her chest so that she can’t wriggle away. “Do you trust me?”

 

She sounds like she’s about to cry. Four police officers storm in, guns pointed at Jordan; he cocks his own and puts it to the woman’s head. He can feel her shaking, and the little bit of empathy left in him allows him to feel regretful.

 

“Move and the woman is gone,” Jordan says.

 

A cop rushes at him anyway. He throws the woman to the side and grabs him by the shoulders, kneeing him swiftly in the chest. Another one comes at him from his left and he shoots him in the chest twice. The third cop that charges at him does it so fast that Jordan doesn’t have time to shoot at him, so he settles for a bit of a fistfight before he forcibly snaps his neck.

 

“You have not run yet,” Jordan says to the last officer standing, “You do not see your comrades?”

 

He gestures to the three men, either dead or dying, lying on the floor around him. One of them shifts slightly, making pathetic, pained noises. He decides that he'll let him die slowly and moves on.

 

The officer points his gun at Jordan. “Turn yourself in. You won’t die if you do so,” he tells him, a disgustingly wide grin settling on his face. “However, if the judge allows- fuck if he allows, honestly- we’ll get you as close to death as possible on a regular basis, you low-down son of a bitch.”

 

Jordan dives for the officer’s legs, taking him to the ground with him. The man hits him over the head once and he grunts painfully, grabbing his hands and twisting them until he does the same. Jordan straddles the officer, pistol whipping him multiple times and never leaving him time enough to react. The man laughs as Jordan yells violently, throwing his gun aside to punch him in the mouth forcefully, fist after fist after fist flying and bloodying his mouth even further.

 

“You are going to murder me in the home of a kind, beautiful woman, in cold blood?” the cop asks with a spiteful laugh. "What they say of you is true; you are a dumb fucking pig. Shit-eating dogs are higher up on the hierarchy than you. Everything you love is gone, and it's your fault. Killing me won't bring them back."

 

Jordan foolishly attempts to recall memories lost and screams unintelligibly when all that comes up is a terrible pain in his head. He reaches for his gun, shoves it into the officer’s mouth, and pulls the trigger.

 

“Bastard,” Jordan mutters, climbing off of the now dead man. He takes his borrowed gun to the kitchen sink, cleaning it to the best of his abilities. Padding back to the bedroom to put the gun away, he hears heavy breathing coming from the closet.

 

He forces himself to at least try and make his body language communicate that he’s not a threat, but some of his actions are still forceful. It’s his nature. He flings the closet door open and the woman looks up at him from where she’s sitting on the floor. Fear is written all over her face; it’s set deep in her widened eyes too, pupils blown. He sticks out his hand in a silent offer to help her up. She doesn’t take him up on it.

 

He kneels down in front of her and studies her face. A bruise is forming where he’d hit her earlier, and he doesn’t know what feeling that spurs within him, but he knows it isn’t a positive one.

 

“My apologies,” is all he can find to say.

 

“Huh?” she asks shakily.

 

“I hurt you,” Jordan responds.

 

She swallows hard. “I’ll live.”

 

“I am no longer threat,” Jordan says, tripping over words as he tries to piece a decent sentence together, “Sorry.”

 

“How many people died?” the woman asks fearfully.

 

“Four.”

 

“How am I supposed to get rid of them?”

 

“Don’t worry. I will have them gone.”

 

Jordan doesn’t know how he’s going to come back from spilling strangers’ blood in this poor woman’s home. He has to find a way to put her at ease at the very least. 

 

"Thank you."

 

"No, thanks must be to you," Jordan says insistently, "I owe you my life."


	2. needles line my seamed up join

The rest of the night and the wee hours of morning see him burying bodies in front of the cabin. He's burying the last one when the woman comes outside, pulling her robe around her tightly as cold wind threatens to chill her to the bone. She stands and watches him for about ten minutes before she decides to speak.

“You got blood on my bedsheets,” she says.

“Apologies,” Jordan tells her, shoveling the last mound of dirt onto the grave.

“Let me see it.”

“Pardon me?”

“Where all that blood came from.”

Jordan proceeds to show her his knuckles; they're the cleanest wounds on him since they ran under some water when he was cleaning her gun the night before. He then lifts his shirt up, revealing deep gashes that litter his right side and dark, painful bruises where two of his ribs on his left side have been kicked at and broken.

“Come inside,” she says after simply observing him for a few moments.

He does as he's told and she makes him sit at the kitchen table.

“I’m afraid to ask you if you have a name,” she tells him with a chuckle that’s slightly disbelieving and uncomfortable. “Unless you're one of those murder-vigilante men who goes by a series of numbers instead of a name like in all those movies.”

“Not important.”

She shakes her head, breathing out a sarcastic laugh. “Of course.”

“Your name,” Jordan says, “What is it?”

She looks at him incredulously, letting out a cynical laugh. “So that's how this is gonna go? I can't know anything about your ass but I gotta offer up info on myself at the drop of a hat.”

“Okay,” Jordan simply says.

“I’m gonna call you Vigilante,” the woman says, mockingly defiant.

“Okay, miss,” Jordan replies. He doesn't understand this woman at all, but he's willing to cooperate with her since she's allowed him to eat her food and rest on her couch.

“So, Vig, do you drink coffee?” the woman asks, “Or is that classified information too?”

He stares blankly in response to her attempt at humor. “Black.”

She gets him his coffee and puts on a silly Russian accent. “I am warrior of the night, I run from government. I drink coffee black as night and I will-”

Jordan hurls his cup of coffee at the wall above her head and she screams, ducking.

“Miss, do not make fun,” he tells her. “Appreciate greatly.”

She stares at him in shock before she scowls. “You got a lot of nerve- oh fuck, do you have some kind of nerve, boy- coming into my house, eating my food, bringing the fucking POLICE with you too? You’ve got to have the biggest balls on the planet to sleep in my bed, kill four- five? Fucking _five_ people in my home, hide from the law, everything, and disrespect the fuck outta me for at least the fourth damn time. You don't have many more times to fuck around, boy. I don't know you, and you _SURELY_ do not know who the fuck I am, but you should know this: I’m the reason you aren't on your ass, alone in these fucking woods. So watch it, because whether you like it or not, I can and will make you leave however and whenever I see fit. Act like you have some fucking sense and stop breaking my shit.”

Jordan stands up, his face dangerously close to the woman’s.

“Do you threaten me?” he asks lowly.

“Yes, I sure do,” she answers, staring him down coldly.

“I would advise you to reconsider, Miss,” Jordan warns with a sneer.

“You realize that I’m the only one keeping you from making a fool of yourself and getting arrested for whatever the fuck it is you have done and will do?” she asks him, “You're lucky that I’m not asking you to kiss my ass, I’m just asking for basic respect. So fucking give it to me before I get your ass the fuck outta here. I’m not afraid of you, motherfucker, I’ve gotten past your little antics and they aren’t cute anymore.”

It’s now Jordan’s turn to stare at the woman in shock. “My apologies.”

“‘My apologies’ ass, greasy ass,” she mutters, picking up the shards of the thrown coffee cup that were strewn all over the floor.

“Jordan,” Jordan says quietly. “I am Jordan.”

The woman stands up straight and throws the glass in a trash can, looking at him hard, as if she's trying to read him. She takes in a deep breath. “And I’m Beyoncé.”

Jordan pronounces Beyoncé's name as “bee-yawn-see” and she smirks, amused.

“Bee-yawn-say,” she tells him.

“Bee-yawn-see,” Jordan says as if he's right. He doesn't understand what he's doing wrong.

“Okay. Try this: bee.”

“Bee?”

“Good. Yawn.”

“Yawn.” Jordan doesn't understand why he's doing this.

“Say.”

“Say what?”

“No, no- the word ‘say.’ Pronounce it.”

“Say.”

“Okay! So, Beyoncé.”

“Beyoncé.” He pronounces it the same way he did before and she rolls her eyes.

“Fine. Whatever. Would you like some more coffee?” Beyoncé asks, pouring herself some in a mug that has a picture of a bumblebee, its scientific name, and labeled anatomy.

“Yes, please,” Jordan says.

Beyoncé pours him a cup of coffee and sits across from him at the table.

“I can patch you up after you finish that,” Beyoncé offers. “If you want.”

Jordan quietly nods, drinking his coffee and relishing the warmth that slips into his chill-ridden body because of it. He observes Beyoncé, who’s checking her phone, drinking her coffee, and looking up at Jordan periodically. She sighs, furrowing her brow at whatever's on her phone and rolling her eyes. She turns it off and puts it down. Jordan continues to stare and she looks around at everything but him. He doesn't understand what’s so intimidating about him; he's being peaceful.

“Is your coffee good?” Beyoncé asks awkwardly.

Jordan nods.

“You should shower when you're done,” she responds, “It’ll be easier for me to work that way.”

Jordan leaves his coffee, unfinished, on the table and looks at Beyoncé.

“Go down the hallway and look to your left. It’s the third room.”

“Thank you,” Jordan says, standing up and grunting quietly when bones crack and wounds get pressed upon by his clothes and the corner of the table.

He walks to the bathroom and peels off each article of clothing one by one. He gets down to his shirt and he's so afraid to see how badly he's hurt that he doesn't want to take his shirt off. He chastises himself for having such a fearful feeling and takes his shirt off anyway. His eyes wander over stab wounds and bruises that litter his torso. He sees a piece of glass glint in the bright light shining from above the bathroom mirror and he reaches to pull it out.

“Don't do that.”

Jordan jumps at the sudden sound of Beyoncé’s voice, about to prepare for a possible altercation when her voice registers with him.

“You have enough problems,” Beyoncé says softly, “wouldn’t want you to get another one by getting an infection.”

Jordan looks at her. She looks him up and down, realizing that he’s completely nude and turning away from him.

“Aw, Jordan, why'd you leave the door open?” she asks, slightly exasperated. “Anyway… clean yourself up but try not to mess with any of your injuries that aren't minor. I’ll try and help you when you're done.”

Beyoncé stands with her back to Jordan and doesn't leave. He waits to see if she will eventually, but she never does, so he steps in the shower. He stands under the hot water for five minutes, resting his head on the shower wall. Beyoncé takes a seat in the spot she’d been standing in, leaning against the doorframe. He closes his eyes for a few seconds, regretting the decision almost instantly when nothing but images of horrific events, past and present, flash behind his eyelids. Grunting at the physical pain of hot water stinging at his wounds and the emotional strain caused by his own ability to commit unpleasant things to memory. When he finishes washing himself, the water’s run cold. He shuts it off.

“Get a towel and sit on the toilet,” Beyoncé says, pointing at a closet she keeps her toiletries and towels in and then pointing at the toilet.

Jordan fishes in the closet for a towel and dries off when he finds one. He wraps it around his waist and takes a seat on top of the toilet seat like Beyoncé asked him to. She gets up and digs around in the cabinet next to the sink for medical supplies, grabbing an armful and dumping them on the floor next to his feet. She kneels in front of him and they share a lingering gaze for a moment. Jordan coughs and Beyoncé washes his wounds. He winces at the stinging sensation it brings.

“Sorry, Vigilante. I figured that you coulda guessed that it would hurt a little,” Beyoncé explains. “You're gonna love the part where I have to pull shit outta you.”

She laughs, he stares at her.

“Tough crowd for Miss Knowles,” she mutters.

As she puts gauze over his wounds, he watches her hands. They're delicate, soft; her nails are painted a glittering black. She gets a long pair of tweezers out of her medical kit and starts pulling little glass shards out of him, and when she gently tugs at a rather large one, he grunts, breathing out of his nose harshly when it's all the way out. He should be moaning in pain at the very least.

“You don't process anything correctly, do you? It's like you experience pain halfway or some shit,” Beyoncé mutters as she presses a towel to the wound to stop the bleeding.

“I know her well,” Jordan answers.

Beyoncé wraps the wounds on his arms and legs in gauze. “Trust me, I can see that.”

She notices the strange bruising around Jordan's ribcage and presses a finger to it gingerly. He sucks in a sharp breath and she jumps back.

“I think you broke a rib. That's why you look uncomfortable every time you breathe in, Jesus,” she says, sounding obviously stressed. “We gotta get you to the hospital-”

“No.”

“O-fucking-kay. I’m not about to argue with you,” Beyoncé says, throwing her hands up in frustration.

Jordan doesn't favor this woman's attitude, but a small part of him appreciates how different it is from the usual attitudes from others. They're all usually scared or violent, out for his head; she could, as far as he knows, care less about him.

“I can still fix this,” Beyoncé says after a long minute of thinking, “And take more shallow breaths, it’ll hurt less.”


	3. but fly alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ice cold, baby, I told you, I'm ice cold (ice cold!)  
> You out here flyin' high (high!)  
> Go 'head, fly that thing!  
> (High! High!)

Jordan lays on Beyoncé’s couch with a scowl on his face. He's allowed himself to let this woman order him around multiple times, and her newest request is for him to rest on the couch until his ribs get better. She won't tell him how long that's supposed to take. 

 

“Kill her,” he says as he watches a daytime drama on her television. 

 

Beyoncé walks into the room, looking down at her wallet before grabbing her keys off of the coffee table. “I’m going into town to buy you some clothes. Don't fuck my house up or I’ll snitch on you- if you haven't told on yourself yet. Stay on the couch. I put food out for you on the coffee table.”

 

Jordan stares at her and she stares right back at him. 

 

“You gotta give me a nod or something at least,” Beyoncé says, “Just so I can know that everything I’m saying isn't going in one ear and out the other.”

 

“Okay,” he says dismissively as he turns to watch television. 

 

She sighs and walks out the door. He looks at the coffee table next to him and reaches for the first thing he sees, which is a bag of chips. He hasn't really had anything other than basic foods such as bread and water ever since he could remember; additionally, he hasn't eaten much recently. Absentmindedly, he shovels chips into his mouth as he watches whatever show decides to come on for him to enjoy, even if he doesn't enjoy it that much. 

 

Jordan is pulled out of his strange lull by the sound of gunshots on tv. His jaw clenches and his grip on the second bag of chips he’s torn through tightens, the food inside breaking under the pressure. The phone on the coffee table begins to ring, and he stares at it until it stops. Blinking hard, he relaxes back into the couch, his brow still furrowed at the sound of gunshots. 

 

The phone rings again; the caller ID says that someone named “me bitch” is calling. 

 

He picks up the phone. “Что ебешь?” he asks gruffly. 

 

“Boy, what the fuck are you saying?” Beyoncé says on the other line. 

 

“You.”

 

“Yes, I am calling my own home because you're there. I don't trust you not to fuck my house up,” Beyoncé says, “So I’m gonna keep you on the line here.”

 

Jordan doesn't reply, opting instead to watch the television. 

 

“Hello?” Beyoncé says. 

 

“Be quiet please,” Jordan says, tense. Doesn't she understand that he's trying to watch television?

 

“Don't you fix your mouth to talk to me like that. I don't know how many more times you have to talk to me any kind of way. Lord. Is Days Of Our Lives on?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What's happened?”

 

“J.J., uh… upset at Gabi,” Jordan tries his best to explain, “Rafe says Gabi is liar.”

 

Beyoncé hums thoughtfully. “Gabi’s kind of annoying if you ask me.”

 

“Me as well- Be quiet, Gabi!” Jordan shouts at the tv. 

 

“Stop yelling,” Beyoncé says, annoyed. “You eaten me outta house and home yet?”

 

“Home is not food,” Jordan says, clearly focused on the television. 

 

“...Anyway,” Beyoncé says, “I’m in line buying your clothes now. After I go get my hair done I’ll be home.”

 

Jordan bides his time while he waits for Beyoncé to come home with some clothes for him to wear. At the moment, all he’s got is a towel wrapped around his waist. He discovers that the remote exists for a reason, and he stumbles upon the pay-per-view adult channels and watches to his heart’s delight as Beyoncé yaps away on the other line. He gives the occasional grunt, hum, or noise of agreement. Time is lost on his end, and when Beyoncé walks through the door, he’s still looking at the television.

 

Beyoncé groans. “What in the fuck is wrong with you?” she exclaims, walking over to where Jordan sits and snatching the remote off of the coffee table, changing the channel.

 

“Excuse me,” Jordan says, slowly turning to look at Beyoncé.

 

Beyoncé looks at him as if she’s begging him to tell her he has a problem with her. “Yes?”

 

“I was watching that.”

 

“What you was doing was runnin’ up my fuckin’ cable bill, Jordan,” Beyoncé replies with an indignant huff, hurriedly tossing a plastic bag full of clothes at him. “Now go try those on.”

 

Jordan stares at her.

 

“Go on, now, before I get even more pissed just by looking at your ass. Go!”

 

Jordan gets up, leaving his towel on the couch; he can feel Beyoncé’s eyes boring into him while his back is to her, and he closes the door behind him when he gets to her bedroom. He pulls the clothes out of the large bag, article by article. The underwear she bought him fit a little snugly, but he doesn’t mind, and the jeans she bought fit him just right. He tries on one of the five shirts she bought. It’s breathable, but it’s a little tight around the arms for him. He attributes that to how he’s built, seemingly all muscle and not much else. Jordan stares at himself in the mirror. He hasn’t seen himself in any other state than one that was piss poor in months, so him seeing himself washed and in decent clothes threw him. He felt out of place, he felt as if he should be back in his dirtied clothes, with grease in his hair and fresh blood staining his shirt.

 

He hears Beyoncé knock softly on the door. “Hope you’re decent,” she says, slowly peeking into the room.

 

When she sees that he's clothed, she steps into the room completely and looks him up and down a few times.  “How does it fit?”

 

“Fine,” Jordan says, looking at himself in the mirror. He’s clearly not completely there, and Beyoncé must sense it, because she sighs.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

Jordan doesn’t know what to say; he can’t tell a near-stranger what he’s going through at the moment. Everything about his life would have to be given away, and the only people who know about what he’s experienced are dead or looking to have his head as a trophy. Opening up has never been his forte anyway, and today isn’t the day he’s about to change that.

 

“Tired.”

 

Beyoncé eyes him suspiciously and shrugs seconds later. “Where are your old clothes?”

 

Jordan goes past her to get out of the room, picking up the pile of his old clothes from where they sit beside the couch and walking out of the cabin. Beyoncé follows. He uses his boot to kick at the thin, patchy layer of snow on the ground so he can get to some soil, and he tosses the clothes atop it. He turns to Beyoncé.

 

“What are you doing?” she asks him.

 

“Matches,” he says, blatantly ignoring her.

 

“Are you gonna burn your fucking clothes up?” Beyoncé asks, disbelieving.

 

“Smart girl,” Jordan replies. Everything from his voice to his smirk is patronizing.

 

“No,” Beyoncé says with indignation after seconds of stunned silence, “I’m not telling you where my damn matches are. I don’t know you well enough to trust you with anything, especially fucking  _ fire _ , Jordan.”

 

“So be it,” Jordan says, walking around Beyoncé to go back inside the cabin. He heads straight for her kitchen and begins to rifle through her drawers. He doesn’t find anything until he gets to the last drawer, where he finds a lighter. It isn’t what he was initially looking for, but it definitely works for him. 

 

“Jordan, don’t you dare,” Beyoncé says to him, walking quickly to match his pace as he walks back outside.

 

Jordan wordlessly crouches in front of the pile of clothes, lighting it on fire. He stands up and backs away from the ever-growing fire, handing Beyoncé her lighter. She snatches it from him and rubs at her temples, frustrated.

 

“You don’t know how to fucking listen, oh my god,” Beyoncé claims, voice breaking as if she’s about to cry. She groans loudly and it somehow turns into an aggravated yell. “You do  _ not _ know how to fucking listen.”

 

Jordan watches her and the fire quietly, hands in his pockets. When he sees that everything is pretty much reduced to ashes, he kicks snow over the slowly dying fire and walks back inside.

 

“I’m gonna pop a major blood vessel, I swear,” Beyoncé says as she follows him.

 

Jordan knows he’s burdening Beyoncé. He can’t help it; if he could change his ways, if he knew what exactly he was doing that was so wrong, he would fix it. The way he is now is the only way he’s really ever known, and anyone that could’ve told him anything about it left his life before they had the chance. He figures that he’s doomed to moving on from person to person without attachment for the rest of his life, and he can only hope that he doesn’t ruin Beyoncé’s life as badly as he’s ruined every other person’s before her. As Jordan turns these thoughts over in his mind, he leans on the frame of the front doorway, looking ahead blankly with his arms crossed. Beyoncé stares at him.

 

“What are you thinking about?” she asks him.

 

“Nothing concerned with you,” Jordan mutters, walking past her to lay on the couch.

 

A liar is what he’s always been, but not in the way most are. All he can lie about are his whereabouts, his feelings, and his life. It’s for his own good. If he were completely honest, he’d been dead, in jail, or being taken advantage of, and none of those options are good enough for Jordan. He has to live his life protecting himself from others in every way imaginable, and it’s a set routine for him. He’ll never get out of it.

 

“I’m tired of you and this fucking superiority complex you seem to have, Jordan.”

 

“Good for you.”

 

“Go to hell,” Beyoncé says, storming off to her bedroom and slamming her door.

 

  
Jordan stares at the ceiling and wonders how much further he has to push before she gets him out of her hair permanently. He welcomes and fears the possibility of it.


	4. take apart your head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> take apart the counting
> 
> and the flock it has bred

Six weeks of little to no activity pass for Jordan like molasses. He feels useless during that time; he stays on edge, too.

•••

Beyoncé gingerly presses on Jordan's ribs. “That hurt?”

Jordan shakes his head.

Beyoncé pats Jordan on the thigh. “Looks like you, sir, are off of bedrest.”

With that, she walks off to the kitchen, sitting at the table and reading the newspaper. Her foot taps on the floor; every now and then she also looks around or scratches at the wood table with a long fingernail. Jordan wonders why she's been so fidgety as of late. He recalls noticing it three weeks ago. At the start of those three weeks, she would yell at him a little or bounce her knee up and down frequently, but now she's moved on to so-called “subtle” ways of expressing whatever emotion she's experiencing.

Any questions he might've had regarding her actions are laid to rest later in the night when he's supposed to be sleeping.

Jordan gets up, his fitful sleep interrupted by a horrible dream that’s always recurring for him. He shuffles to the bathroom and stands in front of the mirror, rubbing at his face and scratching at his untrimmed beard. He hears a loud whine from Beyoncé's bedroom and immediately becomes concerned. He pads over to her room quietly, brow furrowed in puzzlement, and listens at her door.

She gasps somewhat quietly, and then she hums long, needily, wantonly; things start making sense for Jordan. He walks back to the couch she's let him sleep on for the past six weeks and tries (and fails) to fall asleep. He attempts to tune in to the calming sounds of the woods outside the window, but the dominant sounds in his head are the ones he heard coming from Beyoncé. His attempt at rest is fitful, and he ends up getting hard, and he's forced to grind against the couch cushions until he’s somewhat relieved. While he's finished, she isn't; he listens to her come a second time, and anyone else would say that kind of voyeurism is wrong, but Jordan can barely recall any basic etiquette besides “please,” “thank you,” and “I won’t kill you if you help me.”

Jordan falls into a restless sleep.

••••

In the morning, Jordan can't look Beyoncé in the eyes. She isn’t fidgety in the way she has been in the past; it’s more of an anxious kind of thing now. She’s at the stove making eggs.

“Jordan, I need to talk to you.”

“Какие?” Jordan asks, sitting at the kitchen table.

“What were you doing last night?” she asks, sitting with him, two plates of eggs and toast in her hands. She sets one in front of Jordan.

“Resting,” Jordan lies somewhat.

Beyoncé sighs. “Bullshit.”

“Простите?”

“I don’t fucking know what you just said- listen. I know you heard what I was doing last night,” Beyoncé says.

Jordan’s cheeks redden, and he looks everywhere but at Beyoncé.

Beyoncé leans forward, resting her elbows on the table. “You wanna know how I know?”

Jordan swallows thickly, looking at the wall behind her.

“You’re a mouth breather,” she says. “Mind your business next time.”

“Do not be loud,” Jordan retorts, now looking her in the eye.

“Watch yourself,” Beyoncé says, looking right back at Jordan, her eyes glinting with something he can’t put his finger on. Something daring, he thinks.

He clears his throat and drinks his coffee.

“We’re not done talking just yet.”

He looks up at her. “Yes?”

“What are you doing here? Are you just crashing here ‘til you think it’s safe to go back to wherever it is you live, or are you just couchsurfing, or-”

“Homeless,” Jordan says gruffly, taking a bite out of his toast.

When he had been hit with the fact that he had no home, Jordan, at first, did not care. However, as time progressed and he stumbled into more unfortunate situations, he’d realized he’d truly lost everything; he had no family, no roof over his head, and most importantly, he had a terrible lack of knowledge of his own self. Jordan watches as Beyoncé's face softens.

“Oh,” she says, grasping for something coherent to say. She suddenly snaps her fingers. “Let’s make a deal, Vigilante.”

“Jordan.”

“Tomato, tomato. How about this: you help me, I help you. Help me out with chores around here and- Oh, fuck, this is gonna sound mean.”

“Proceed,” Jordan says, scowling quizzically.

“Not to come off as rude, but you suck at interacting with other human beings.”

Jordan doesn't have to be told that, he knows. He can't help it- being on the run for what seems like an endless amount of time isn't good for one’s social skills, and when the only social interactions one has are with people who want you dead, they don't exactly have time to put the human decency they were born with into practice.

“Okay.”

“I could help you,” Beyoncé offers, “teach you English- hell, you could teach me whatever the hell it is you speak. Romanian? Russian? And I could attempt to help you be somewhat decent. Please don't think I’m looking at you as a charity case. I kind of am, but it's hard not to when you came into my house with shitty communication skills and a bad temper, all banged up like a screen door in a hurricane. Back to my main point, though- we could be like mutual parasites, feeding off each other.”

Jordan sneers in disgust at the analogy.

“Shitty analogy. But what do you say?”

Jordan stares at her blankly, tracing a finger around the rim of his coffee cup. After a few seconds, he speaks.

“Give me midnight, I will know.”

Beyoncé processes his response and pats the table.

“Well, until you do know, can you get me some wood? The guy usually gets it for me is on vacation, and I don't feel like going into town to find me a strong, handsome suitor to convince to do the work for me. Plus, you're right here, all muscles and miscommunication and brawn,” Beyoncé rambles, patting him on the shoulder and looking at him awkwardly when he stares at where she hit him and then at her. “Oops.”

•••

Jordan chops at wood, grunting at the physical exertion that he’s become a stranger to for the past six weeks. With every swing of the heavy axe in his hands, he's reminded of the fact that this could be his life for however long it takes for it to be snatched from him. Jordan can already tell that Beyoncé is attached to him somewhat; how exactly she's attached, he doesn't know, but he resents it a little bit.

Truthfully, Jordan wants to appreciate and celebrate Beyoncé waltzing into his life and being the most decent person he's come across in a long time. However, the inevitability of him having to part ways with her or her getting hurt because of him hangs over him, a heavy, grey cloud of a horrendous mix of guilt, emotional distance, and doubt.

“I made some tea if you want to come inside and get it,” Beyoncé calls from the front door, the natural chirping tone in her voice pulling him away from his self-pity session.

“Am fine,” Jordan grunts, bringing his axe down on another piece of wood and watching splinters and wood chips jump out in different directions.

“If you say so,” Beyoncé says. “I’ll be cooking if you need me.”

Jordan wonders if she needs him as much as he’s beginning to think he needs her.


	5. a fantastic way to kill some time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you could lay on your back and be beaten  
> you could put up your fists and fight  
> you could try any way out

“Get up, we’re going on a trip,” Beyoncé yells from the kitchen.

 

Jordan groans and sits up, not fully awake enough to be able to tolerate yelling.

 

“Заткнись!” Jordan moans miserably.

 

Beyoncé repeats the same phrase into her phone with a terrible accent. She tried, at least.

 

“You just told me to shut up,” Beyoncé says, marching over to the couch. “That’s right, I got a translator app. You ain’t slick. Don’t talk to me like that.”

 

Jordan rolls his eyes.

 

“Now make yourself look decent,” Beyoncé orders. “We leave in half an hour.”

 

Jordan shuffles to the bathroom and brushes his teeth. As he always does when he’s in Beyoncé’s bathroom, he looks at himself. He’s been living with her for almost two and a half months and it shows in his face; it’s fuller than it has been for him ever. His cheeks are even a little rosier, his resting facial expression is softer. He’s beginning to look like his mother. Initially, he thought she would be a distant memory due to time and strife but to his great dismay and pleasant surprise she still resides in his mind as a sort of dream. When he sees her, she’s just as simultaneously strong and similar to fine china as she always was. The vision of her is always the same: she’s standing on the front porch of the humble, run-down home her and him shared and the sun is shining. It’s an unusually warm day, so she’s not wrapped up. There’s a breeze, and her long, dark hair floats on it as she peacefully observes the vast hillside. What he sees is the only memory of her he allows himself to consciously hold onto. Every other one only brings up deep grief or longing, and he’s been making an effort to believe he has no time for either of those in his life. Despite failing terribly, he’s still going to pretend that way of thinking is helping him while he knows and feels how it’s hurting him. 

 

He prefers to repress memories of the day he lost his mother; though he tries, however, he closes his eyes at times and everything comes rushing back in violent waves of the purest kind of hurt imaginable. Despite having been thirteen, he remembers like it happened the day before and feels every single thing he felt that day tenfold. He feels the way his heart pounded as he ran from soldiers raiding the village he called home, he feels the panic that would set in every time he would look back to see if his mother was still running behind him, the way everything stopped when he did so one final time and witnessed his mother get shot down in cold blood. It took him a long six months filled with fending for himself in a fast-paced world to cry about it. All he could and still can hear ringing in his ears was his mother’s laugh. Earlier that day, he’d asked her why anyone bothers to wake from deep slumber- which was, in his thirteen-year-old opinion, the greatest gift to humanity- and she laughed, soft and delicate as a ribbon dancing on the breeze. 

 

“Я не знаю относительно других, Иордании, но я просыпаюсь для вас. Если я делал, я не мог бы жить; когда вы смеетесь, я смеюсь, когда вы кричите , я кричу . Если я не пробуждался, чтобы видеть вас через жизнь и - с вами в каждом шаге, то, почему я должен быть бодрствующим? С тех пор как мы встретились, все я сделал - дышат для вас, улыбка для вас, работа для вас. Я просыпаюсь, поскольку глубокая дремота сдерживает меня от вас. Я пробуждаюсь, чтобы видеть, что вы улыбнулись, точно так же как одни следы, чтобы видеть, что солнце повысилось, Иордания.”

 

At the time, Jordan didn't pay it much mind; his mother was always like that. He appreciated it, but he didn't realize the weight of her words until she was gone. Sometimes, he wonders if his mother is up in some pristine, otherworldly place of fable looking down upon him, and he desperately wants to be able to know and see her again. However, he knows that he has things to do while he's not with her, so he pushes the thought to the back of his mind. 

 

When Jordan is fully aware of his surroundings again, he peers at himself in the mirror; tears he didn't feel fall are on his cheeks. He wets his face with water from the faucet, spits foamy toothpaste out of his mouth, and sighs. When he walks out of the bathroom, he hears Beyoncé singing as she shuffles around in her room, most likely putting clothes on. He goes into the living room and looks at the rack of his clothes that hang in front of him. He pulls a pair of cargo shorts and a shirt off of it and changes his clothes. As he’s sitting on the couch lacing his boots up, Beyoncé enters the room. The first thing he notices about her is how her shirt matches his. Beyoncé must notice too, because she pauses for a minute or so before she smiles. 

 

“We both wore our minion shirts today,” Beyoncé chirps, breezing over to him with her wallet and keys in her hand. She pats Jordan on the chest. “Cute!”

 

She walks past Jordan to open the front door and he takes a good look at her; she’s got on little denim shorts that he just  _ knows  _ she had to squeeze into and it shows when she walks. Her hair is flowing freely as she moves and she stops to pull her shorts up because she didn’t wear a belt.

 

“Staring is fucking rude, Jordan,” Beyoncé comments. Strangely enough, she doesn’t look so upset. “Get in the car before I whoop your ass.”

 

Jordan rolls his eyes at Beyoncé and gets into the driver’s seat of her SUV. Beyoncé approaches the car and looks at him through the window as if he’s grown a third nose. She opens the door.

 

“The hell is wrong with you?” she asks.

 

“Keys.” Jordan taps his fingers on the steering wheel.

 

“Get in the passenger seat before I drag you out this car by your silly ass, JTT ass lookin’ hair. The fuck is your problem?”

 

Jordan stares at her in silence for almost five minutes before she looks at him expectantly and he climbs over into the passenger seat instead of getting out of the car and walking around to the passenger side like a civilized person. She gets into the car and looks at Jordan.

  
“Ready to have some fun, Vig?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translation of that russian paragraph:
> 
> I do not know about others, Jordan, but I wake up for you. If I didn't, I could not live. When you laugh, I laugh, when you cry, I cry. If I did not wake up to see you through life and and be with you for every step, then why should I be awake? Since we met, I've done everything for you- breathe for you, smile for you, work for you. I wake up because a deep slumber keeps me from you. I wake up to see that you have smiled, just like one wakes to see the sun rise, Jordan.


	6. bounce back

“Stop messin’ with my radio,” Beyoncé warns Jordan.

 

Jordan disregards her and continues to press the buttons and change radio stations. 

 

Beyoncé uses one hand to slap Jordan's away from the radio and steers with the other. 

 

Jordan scowls.  “Do not hit me.”

 

“Do not touch my radio,” Beyoncé says, her tone mocking Jordan's. She plugs her phone into the car’s console and hands her phone to Jordan. “You look like you know how to use a phone. Find something for us to listen to.”

 

Jordan scowls at the phone and recalls when he'd see Beyoncé use it. He doesn't know how to use  _ this  _ phone- she does, but not him. Naturally, he imitates what he's seen from Beyoncé and experimentally swipes at the phone once. The screen changes to display a new set of images and English titles. He rests his thumb on it and it changes again, this time showing one image and one title. 

 

“Don't play no bullshit, either- what's taking so long?” Beyoncé asks, momentarily taking her eyes off the road to look at what he's doing. “Are you going through my texts?”

 

Jordan clicks the title he's been staring at for a minute and music plays, a man speaking over it, not singing. Jordan’s scowl deepens. 

 

Beyoncé's face lights up. “Ooh, you picked a good song!” she exclaims, dancing around in her seat as they stop at a red light. “This is my  _ SONG _ , Vig!”

 

Jordan's seat rattles a bit because of the song nearly blasting out of the car’s speakers. 

 

“Last night, took a L, but tonight I bounce back,” Beyoncé says along with the song, “Wake up every morning, by the night I count stacks.”

 

Jordan watches as Beyoncé sings and dances, and he's somewhat amused. He finds himself liking the song despite not being able to understand it, and he starts nodding along to the beat. Beyoncé begins driving again and looks at Jordan, a smile coming to her face. 

 

“Oh, you like this?” she asks. 

 

Jordan nods. The song is ending and Beyoncé is at another red light, so she grabs her phone and talks into it. 

 

“Siri, play ‘I Don't Fuck With You,’” she says. 

 

Her phone talks back to her, telling her it's going to play the song, and Jordan is frightened. 

 

“Has she been listening to us?” Jordan asks.

 

“She?”

 

“Woman in your phone.”

 

Beyoncé scowls. “Fucking Siri?”

 

***

“Don't touch anything,” Beyoncé says as her and Jordan walk into mall that took them almost an hour to get to because she lives so far out. 

 

Jordan rolls his eyes and wordlessly follows Beyoncé, looking around at all of the storefronts and advertisements trying to steal his attention. He gets lost in it all; it's a world he's never known and it's one he doesn't care to know now. He favors simple things, everything else is too flashy or time-consuming for him. Beyoncé pulls him out of his own thoughts when she tugs on his sleeve, directing him into a store. 

 

“Jordan, meet Calvin,” she says as they walk in. 

 

Jordan is assaulted with images of models, tanned and gorgeous, and something in Jordan is happy that he's capable of having a better body than the men he sees. He directs his focus to Beyoncé. She picks out a few pairs of boxer briefs, two t-shirts, three bras, and a pair of socks. 

 

“I’m gonna go try some stuff on. Can I trust you to not fuck something up?” Beyoncé asks. 

 

“Do not patronize me. I am not child,” Jordan says, brow furrowed. 

 

Beyoncé makes an expression that can only be described by the word “yikes” and pats him on the arm.

 

“Who pissed in your cornflakes? Anyway, I’ll be back soon,” she says, “And  _ don't  _ touch anything.”

 

He watches her walk away and enjoys it. She's not nagging at him, and he can appreciate how nice her walk is- and how nice her ass looks in her shorts, but he's only willing to be vocal about one of those things. A group of younger girls, looking to be around 20, walk past him. They throw quick glances his way as they pass and whisper about something, giggly and secretive as ever. Jordan is instantly concerned. 

 

He begins to wander around the store, not keeping his back to the entrance just in case. It always saddens him, how defensive he has to stay, whether he likes it or not. However, he reminds himself constantly, unfortunately, that's a part of his life. Hyperaware, on the lookout, distrusting.

 

“Can I help you, sir?” a woman asks. 

 

Jordan has to look down to see her. She can't be pushing five feet, he thinks, and he coughs awkwardly. She’s looking at him hard, predator-like in a strange sense, and when he looks her in the eye, he looks away because he's so uncomfortable. He feels like a bug under a microscope. 

 

He forces a smile and a somewhat pleasant tone. “Waiting for friend.”

 

“Well, if you need anything, I’m here,” she replies, putting her hand out for him to shake. “I’m Evaline.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

They share an awkward look before she walks back to the registers, and her eyes struggle to stay away from him; it doesn't go unnoticed. The group of young girls circle around the store, stealing glances at him when they think he doesn't notice- why, he wonders, is everyone so interested in seeing what he's doing? 

 

He must start staring off into space, because when he hears an airy voice and feels someone tugging at his shirt sleeve, he jumps, almost rearing up to slap whoever’s next to him. 

 

“Oh! Sorry if I scared you,” a girl from the group says with a smile.

 

“Is fine,” Jordan replies, scowling, unsure and confused.

 

“My friend over there is like, way too shy to talk to you,” she says, pointing at a girl standing across the room. “She thinks you're like, a total ten.”

 

Three girls from the group are huddled around someone, talking and pointing and seemingly urging someone to do something when they spot him and separate. The girl left standing alone stares right at him for a few seconds before she looks around, trying to seem nonchalant.

 

“I’m Amber,” the girl talking to him says, “and that’s Angelica. She thinks your minion shirt is cute, too.”

 

Jordan nods, still scowling a little. He opens his mouth to speak, but he hears Beyoncé speaking to sales associates as she walks out of the changing room.

 

“C’mon, baby, let's go,” Beyoncé says, yanking Jordan by the arm after she puts some clothes away and pays for the ones she keeps. “I’m hungry.”

 

“Baby?”

 

Jordan stumbles along as she walks quickly with him in her grasp. 

 

“Please do not do that,” Jordan says in reaction to being dragged along. 

 

When they get to the food court, Beyoncé lets him go. “Just didn't want you to get lost,” she says, stopping to order food for her and Jordan. “So what were you doing with Amber? Was she bothering you? She was so annoying when I used to live next door to her family.”

 

Jordan shrugs. He follows Beyoncé as she walks toward a McDonald’s. When they’re next up in line, she stands on the tips of her toes and leans over the counter so she can see what’s on the menu. Jordan’s eyes linger on her ass for far too long, and after she orders she turns around and gives him a tired stare. 

 

“I’d ask you if you had any home training, but the obvious answer to that is no, so.”

 

Jordan nods as if he's listening to her fussing and starts to stare at her; he doesn't think he's noticed it before, but she's beautiful. He guesses that he's never stopped to look at her in a purely observant manner. Her nude-colored pout reminds him of those on the ceramic dolls his mother used to collect, all pretty hair and blushing cheeks and wide eyes. 

 

“Jordan!”

 

Jordan blinks hard, finally paying attention. Something about her voice puts him at ease in a way that scares him slightly. If he lets his guard down, there's no telling what could happen. He can only hope for the best as always.

 

“What?”

 

“I was saying that you need to pick something to eat.”

 

“Fries. Coke.”

 

“And what else?”

 

“Please,” Jordan groans.


	7. hubris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I thought I'd silenced you, but here you are again, welcoming my anxiety. I wanted to throw you out. Since you decayed, I remained imprisoned. I thought I'd hear from you though you had escaped from me. Maybe I'm too scared to forget you. I just can't remember how it feels like to function without--  
> Absorbed in total free fall. It's a waste of time. It's not that serious... You have to come back more often to solve these issues  
> Right?

“Run a background check” is the thing at the top of Jordan's list and it's irking him for some inexplicable reason.

 

He stares at Beyoncé hard as she eats her chicken nuggets and looks at her phone. He feels someone behind him approaching, their eyes temporarily boring into the back if his head, and when they breeze past him his body tenses up. They stop to talk to Beyoncé. “They” happen to be a woman who looks to be in her mid thirties, with blonde hair that's cut disgustingly short and a uncomfortably goofy air about her that's unfortunately hard to ignore.

 

“Oh my goodness, Bey!” she says, hugging Beyoncé happily, “Long time, no see! How’re you?”

 

“I’m good,” Beyoncé replies politely.

 

“What's been going on since college?” the woman asks.

 

Jordan stares at Beyoncé yet again, observing her tense shoulders and somewhat clenched jaw. Discomfort. She nods profusely and mumbles in distant agreement with a strained smile as the woman rambles on about her own life. Annoyance. When the woman turns to look at Jordan, Beyoncé's eyes widen.

 

“O-M-G, you did NOT break your “no men” rule, Bey!”

 

This stranger pronounces Beyoncé's name wrong, and Jordan is annoyed. Beyoncé looks between her friend and Jordan a few times, laughing nervously.

 

“Guess you could say I put the scissors down after I graduated,” she quietly says, her tone not matching the joke she was shittily delivering.

 

“What's your name, you shy thing?”

 

If looks held physical power, Jordan would have this woman in a severe headlock, and this woman would be trying to get a child from him.

 

“Jordan,” he deadpans, looking at his fries because they're less bland and annoying than she is.

 

“How lovely a name! How long have you known Bey?”

 

“Four-” Beyoncé stops when she sees Jordan hold up the same number of fingers. “Four years.”

 

“I don't mean to sound insensitive, but where's your accent from?”

 

“Russia,” Jordan tells her, clearly annoyed.

 

Beyoncé laughs uncomfortably. “Remember when I took that trip overseas right after college?” she asks, lacing her fingers in between Jordan’s and doing her best to convincingly look at him with tenderness in her eyes; it strangely doesn’t seem that hard for her. For him, however, he almost yanks his hand away in reaction to the contact. 

 

“Of course I do!” the woman says excitedly. “I guess you weren’t there for research, were you?”

 

Jordan looks down at his fries, eating them slowly and trying to tune out the conversation. He can’t.

 

“Kathryn, stop,” Beyoncé says bashfully. “But I was walking down a little pier; I needed directions, my map was in Russian and it wasn’t something I could translate well, and I saw Jordy at the end of it fishing with his father.”

 

Jordan snatches his hand away from Beyoncé and walks to the bathroom, finding a stall with a window at the top of the wall and sitting on the toilet tank, taking a cigarette from behind his ear. He opens the window and lights it, slouching to lean against the wall while he smokes. 

 

His father was never around.

 

He blows smoke in the direction of the window, watching as most of it escapes aside from the last bit of it, which gets pushed back into the restroom by the wind. He usually didn’t pay his absent dad much mind; he never really knew him anyway, so there wasn’t much to spend hours and days and months and years and lifetimes to ponder about. However, something about the mention of his father gave him an indescribable ache in a deep part of his heart and his stomach. When he was younger he felt obligated to feel some kind of resentment toward his father, probably to save face. He can’t remember.

 

“Hubris,” his mother would tell him, “prideful, like your father.”

 

It’s too late for his mother to take that back, but he still wishes that she could.

 

* * *

 

 

“Mind telling me why you ran off?  _ And  _ why you’re smoking inside of a fucking mall?” Beyoncé asks, snatching the cig out of his mouth as her and Jordan walk through the mall again.

 

Jordan grabs her wrist. She looks at him defiantly and he holds her gaze with a hard look of his own.

 

“Let go. You’re causing a scene,” Beyoncé says through her teeth. 

 

Jordan looks around, seeing people, most of whom are children, staring. He lets Beyoncé go and she stubs the cigarette out under her foot, throwing it away. She continues walking and leaves him to catch up, which he does, and he’s quiet.

 

“Teach me something in Russian,” Beyoncé demands somewhat sweetly, yanking him into another clothing store. He grunts stubbornly. “Don’t act like that. You gotta hold your part of the deal up.”

 

Jordan rolls his eyes. “привет,” he says, monotone.

 

“And what does that mean?” Beyoncé asks, holding shirts up to his chest to gauge whether or not they might fit.

 

“Hello.”

 

“Well, hello to you too, but what does it mean?” Beyoncé jokes.

 

Jordan shakes his head and scoffs.

 

Beyoncé groans. “Oh my GOD, you’re so boring,” she says, handing Jordan a shirt. “Go try this on.” 

 

Jordan trudges to the changing rooms and takes his shirt off, looking at himself in the mirror. Ugly flesh-colored scars take the place of the wounds that were on his torso weeks ago. However, bruises that were once there aren’t visible any longer, and Jordan is grateful despite feeling strange about seeing himself looking somewhat whole. He slips the new shirt on and stands outside of the changing room.

 

“привет,” Beyoncé says, jokingly suggestive.

 

For one of the first few times in a few weeks, Jordan cracks a smile.


	8. my heart is the worst kind of weapon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i am jack's broken heart

Jordan sits in Beyoncé’s kitchen, drinking coffee, and he decides that he’s going to ride this living situation out as long as time allows him. He knows it’s not the most intelligent choice, but then again, when has anything over the past few months made sense for him?

 

“Will is coming!” Beyoncé shouts, running past Jordan with a pile of his own clothes in her hands.

 

“Will?” Jordan asks, confused.

 

Beyoncé runs back to the kitchen, doubled over. “My boyfriend?” she pants.

 

Instantly, Jordan is jealous, and unlike his other emotions, he’s immediately able to figure out the cause of it. “Boyfriend?”

 

“Yeah, I bet you thought I was some lonely hag, huh? He was out in Antarctica getting ice cores,” Beyoncé explains, still catching her breath, “boy, am I outta shape. Anyway, we’re both researchers, and he’s been gone for six months. I missed him.”

 

Jordan notices that she hesitates before she gets her last sentence out. He raises an eyebrow.

 

“Will like vodka?”

 

Get him drunk. He’ll show his true, hopefully ugly (ugly within reason) colors to Beyoncé and get kicked to the curb. 

 

Why does Jordan suddenly have to be on top?

 

A smile flickers on Beyoncé's face for half a second before she blatantly forces herself to change her expression to a more serious one. “No, actually, he hates it.”

 

“Oh,” Jordan says, wanting Beyoncé to believe he wants to welcome Will in what he believes to be his home now in a sort of way. “Will like-”

 

“What  _ Will like  _ is for Beyoncé to not have other men living with her in the cabin he specifically found just for- Anyway. He gets here in 10. You’re gonna either have to put those seemingly good hiding skills to use or get lost ‘til tomorrow.”

 

“I hide,” Jordan mumbles, annoyed. 

 

“Good,” Beyoncé says, getting him out of the chair he's in and pushing him to the closet in her bedroom. “You're scary good at being quiet, so do it now.”

 

Jordan was clearly the alpha in a sense, he’s never met Will but he's clearly stronger, smarter, better. Despite the short time he's been around Beyoncé, he knows she loves his presence- right? So why's she need  _Will_ ?

 

“Baby!” Jordan hears Beyoncé say excitedly. Something else resides under her tone and he can't tell what. It sounds like the name she has for him tastes bitter on her tongue. 

 

Jordan's reading too much into it.

 

“Hey, Bey,” someone else, presumably Will, says happily.

 

If anyone were to ask Jordan (which, nobody will ask, and he's upset about it), he’d suggest that anyone who's been away from someone they “love” for half a year would sound a little more gleeful, a little hungrier, a little bit more positive than what he heard. Then again, he's on the sidelines spectating- actually, he's worse, he's basically sitting on his own and listening to the game they're playing on the radio. He continues to listen as best as he can and hears Beyoncé talk about the Chinese she ordered in for them. He hears the squeaking of the kitchen cabinets opening and closing as she gets wine for her and Will, discussing the taste and the color and the price. He hears the satisfied hums and the noisy sounds of silverware hitting the plates they use as they eat. His blood could boil only so much before it evaporates and he turns into a corpse in her closet. Jordan huffs out a laugh when he makes the connection of skeletons being in closets.

 

Quiet chatter. Breathed-out giggles. Annoyingly affectionate coos. Pleasant conversation.

 

Jordan hears a surprised shout come from Beyoncé, and he almost breaks the closet doors to run to her, but he stays rooted in his tight space, listening with disgust as heavy footsteps approach the room he's in.

 

“Put me down!” Beyoncé says. Jordan hears her feet softly touch the floor. “Will, baby, we need to talk.”

 

“About what?” Will asks, his tone defensive.

 

“Us,” Beyoncé says somewhat fearfully. Jordan peeks through the slats in the closet door at her and Will.

 

“Us?”

 

He sees Beyoncé hesitate before smiling. “Let's talk about it later, okay?”

 

“No, I wanna hear about it now. You shouldn’t have brought it up if you aren’t ready to talk about it now.”

 

Everything about Will is defensive, from the way his shoulders are tensed, to the way he’s standing over Beyoncé, to the way he’s speaking to her. If Jordan wasn’t on edge before, he definitely is now. He takes in what he can see of Will’s appearance. He looks like an older man; Jordan can’t exactly put a finger on his age, but he knows it’s nowhere near 20 or 30. If Will is anywhere near his forties, Jordan thinks, he’s really pushing it. He’s skinny, taller than Jordan, too.

 

He’s everything that Jordan is not, and he is nothing Jordan will ever want to be. Jordan is disgusted.

 

“Will, I said I don’t wanna talk about it right now,” Beyoncé says, clearly growing annoyed.

 

“I don’t give a fuck about what you said. It’s clearly something important, so spit it out,” Will demands.

 

Beyoncé attempts to shove past Will, but he pulls her back by the wrist. She makes a frustrated noise and tries to pry his fingers away. 

 

“Will, let me go,” Beyoncé says, sounding as if she’s near tears.

 

“Talk to me and I will.”

 

“I told you I don’t wanna fucking talk right now! Leave me the fuck alone-”

 

She’s cut off by the harsh sound and undoubtedly harsh feeling of Will slapping her. Jordan accidentally holds his breath, shocked. Beyoncé yanks away from Will to hold her face, eyes on the floor. Jordan feels like he got hit himself, and he feels like he’s filled to the brim with rage- from his toes all the way to his fucking skull.

 

“I hate it when you do that, Will. Get out,” Beyoncé says, tears in her eyes.

 

Jordan wishes he had a mirror, because he bets steam is coming out of his ears. He feels empathy for Beyoncé, and while that feeling is foreign to him, it’s real nonetheless, and it’s driven him to absolute anger. Even he knows that nothing so terrifying should be normal.

 

“I’m not fucking going anywhere,” Will says. “I don’t have anywhere to go until tomorrow, anyway.”

 

Jordan knows exactly what’s come over him when he steps out of the closet. He cracks his neck, silently thankful for the relief from the cramped closet, and blinks hard when Will turns around to look at him.

 

“Who the fuck is this?” Will asks Beyoncé.

 

Beyoncé looks even more terrified than before, so much so that her hands shake a little.

 

“No need for introduction, Will. Short for William, no?” Jordan asks, extending his hand for Will to shake.

 

“Who the fuck are you?” Will asks, looking at Jordan’s hand in disgust and then looking him in the eye again.

 

Jordan decides that Will is clearly too old for petty small talk, so he makes the rational and  _ completely  _ justified decision to punch him in the mouth. Will staggers backward but bounces back quickly, trying to rush at Jordan, and he lands a hard hit on his right side. Jordan punches him in the stomach with his left hand and then in the face with his right, and he backs away again, doubled over, this time taking longer to straighten up and come back. When he does, however, Jordan’s punching him in the nose so hard that it sends him spinning and falling to the ground with a hard  _ thud _ . Blood drips from his nose and onto the hardwood flooring of the bedroom, and he wipes at it before trying to get up again. Jordan straddles him and uppercuts him when he tries to wrap a hand around his neck. 

 

Punch after punch lands on Will’s face, blood spattering on the floor, on Jordan, and smearing on his hands. When Will starts to fight back less, Jordan makes himself go back to earlier in the day, when he’d silently hoped that Will was a piece of shit, and he feels a horrible, giant, unavoidable, vomit-inducing wave of absolute regret wash over him.  Will spits blood and a tooth into Jordan’s face, prompting him to punch him hard enough to make him pass out. Jordan stands up and wipes his face on the sleeve of the sweater Beyoncé had bought him the day before. He turns to Beyoncé, expecting her to be sitting on the bed, but she’s not there. He calls for her, standing in front of her vanity, and he feels a tap on his boot and looks down.

 

“I’m right here,” Beyoncé says quietly.

 

“You can come out,” Jordan replies, trying his best to sound cool and calm. Beyoncé reluctantly comes from under the vanity, grabbing onto it to help herself up and looking past Jordan at Will lying on the floor unconscious.

 

“I was gonna break up with him,” Beyoncé shakily says.

 

Jordan should be happy, and he kind of is, but his own guilt and strange need to have been able to do something earlier overwhelms him. He nods, understanding, and kneels over Will, taking his shirt off before dragging him to the kitchen and putting him in a chair. He lets him slump forward as he finds trash bags to rip up and tie him to the chair with. Beyoncé looks on, chewing on her lip, her brow furrowed. He knows she’s anxious, and he wishes he could do something about it, but hopefully what he’s doing at the moment will suffice. When Will’s tied to the chair, head hanging forward, Jordan washes his hands and looks at Beyoncé.

 

“What?” Beyoncé asks.

 

It sounds more like a worried statement than a question to Jordan.

 

“You are safe,” Jordan tells her.

 

He could be lying when it comes to the grand scheme of things, but for now, he is not.


	9. wicked fate, but the sick gets...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i am jack's smirking revenge

“You have vodka?” Jordan asks, rifling through Beyoncé’s cabinets.

 

“No-”

 

Jordan finds what he's looking for, and it's far in the back of the shelf and hands the bottle to her. “You have vodka.”

 

“I-” she starts, looking at him, then the bottle, then him again. “I don’t like vodka.”

 

He snatches the bottle, opening it and drinking from it himself. He doesn’t really react to the bitter taste on his tongue, but he squeezes his eyes shut temporarily at the burn as it goes down. 

 

“Well?” Jordan asks expectantly.

 

“I like wine,” Beyoncé says.

 

“Wine is weak,” Jordan deadpans, looking through the cabinets again.

 

“Well, I like it, and I’ve been through enough tonight, so-”

 

Jordan finds a bottle of Hennessy and puts it on the table in front of Beyoncé. “Try.”

 

“You’re not gonna let this go, are you?” Beyoncé asks, sighing.

 

“No.”

 

Beyoncé shakes her head and grabs the bottle, opening it, and when she takes a drink she grimaces, no doubt at the burn that’s probably shooting down her throat. She looks at Jordan as if she’s fulfilled her minimum requirement and resents him for making her try it, but she keeps drinking. After 5 sips, Jordan takes the bottle from her.

 

“Talk,” he demands.

 

Beyoncé sniffs as if she’s about to cry. “Huh?” she asks pitifully enough to make Jordan feel something.

 

Jordan gestures to Will.

 

“Will?” Beyoncé asks. A tear rolls down her cheek as she stares between Will and Jordan silently for a moment, and then she starts full-on bawling.

 

Jordan stares at Beyoncé. What is he supposed to do? He’s thinking- nothing is coming to mind. Beyoncé’s crying so hard that the only time she stops is to wheeze, choke, and cough- in that exact order. Jordan feels… bad. He can’t find another word to describe it, that’s it. Bad. Terrible, no, because if he had the capacity to feel that emotion at the moment, he’d be feeling it about his missing parents and not about how he just beat somebody within and inch of their lives. Speaking of his parents, specifically his mother, he digs deep into his memories to think about what his mother would do when he cried, which was rare, but still happened because he was a child. He doesn’t want to have to think about his mother; it hurts. It’s freeing somewhat, but it hurts. However, for all Beyoncé’s done for him, he can stand to hurt for a moment to try to help her. He focuses, hard, and sees his mother consoling him. She’s patting him on the back.

 

He pats Beyoncé on the back, and as soon as his hand lands the first time, Beyoncé speaks. It startles him.

 

“I-I tried, I sw-ear, I did,” she says. Jordan is barely able to decipher what she’s saying through her tears and pathetic hiccups that make her stutter. “I tried s-so hard to… love him! You-you wanna know something?”

 

Jordan nods. “Let me know.”

 

She stops crying momentarily to speak, and as her sentence finishes, her voice into a crescendo that ends in a sob.  “He never remembered my birthday.”

 

“I’m sorry,” is all Jordan knows how to say to what she’s telling him.

 

Beyoncé laughs spitefully and hiccups. “Trust me, I’ve been sorry.” She’s shaking her head as if she can’t believe what’s happened to her. Jordan can relate. “If anything,  _ he  _ should be sorry, but no, it’s me, I’m the one who looked foolish.”

 

Jordan sneers. “Sorry excuse for human being.” He rolls his bloody sleeves up and tilts Will’s head up. He shoves Will’s shirt into his mouth and pries his eyes open. “Tell him.”

 

“Huh?” Beyoncé says with a sniffle.

 

Will looks from Beyoncé to Jordan frantically and screams, but it’s muffled by the shirt deep in his mouth.

 

“How you feel. Tell him.”

 

“I don’t know if-”

 

“Now.”

 

Beyoncé takes in a deep, shaky breath. “Okay-”

 

Jordan punches Will in the throat. He can’t resist it. He’s not sorry, either. Will groans in pain.

 

“Jordan!” Beyoncé shrieks.

 

“Proceed.”

 

“Oh, my God. Okay… Will?”

 

Jordan yanks Will’s hair as he keeps trying to scream. “Listen.”

 

“You… you hurt me a lot-” Beyoncé hiccups and shakily continues on. “-and I wish I could know why- ‘I wish’ isn’t the smartest thing to say, because I will never know. Any explanation you can give me will not suffice.”

 

She looks at Jordan, eyes filled with a sense of fear- of him or of Will, he can’t tell.

 

Jordan yanks at Will’s hair again, smacking him on the back of the head with the other hand. “Go on, Beyoncé.”

 

Beyoncé swallows hard and continues. “You made me do so many things I didn't want to, but when I politely asked you to remember simple things like my middle name and my birthday and my favorite color. And the é in my name. And how the short version of my name is pronounced.” She sniffles and nods in Jordan’s direction.

 

“Bey,” he says correctly.

 

“See?” Beyoncé says, voice breaking because she’s about to cry again, “He remembered and I haven’t even known him for a whole year. You took so much from me, and I just wish I could take something from you so you’d know how it feels, but-”

 

Jordan pulls a gun from his waistband and sets it on the table.

 

Beyoncé looks horrified. “NO. I’m not KILLING somebody-”

 

Jordan forces Will’s hand flat on the table, sticking the knife from his belt loop in it and ignoring his screams. “Shoot.”

 

A nervous laugh bubbles up from Beyoncé’s throat. “Oh. But still.”

 

Jordan looks her in the eye determinedly. “Do it,” he demands.

 

Beyoncé grabs the gun, eyes widening at the sight of it in her hand. “You- you gonna help me? I’m a little bit of a lightweight, so.”

 

Jordan steps behind her when she stands up; her hands are shaking. He places his hands over hers, helping her aim the gun at Will’s hand. His back is pressed to hers, and his bending down to talk in her ear. 

 

“How many times did he do it?” he quietly asks.

 

“28,” Beyoncé answers without hesitation.

 

“Five bullets to spare,” Jordan mutters.

 

“What are-” Beyoncé stops herself. “I can’t do this anymore.”

 

Jordan feels like something in Beyoncé’s shifted. “Hm?”

 

“Is it… is it terrible that I want to hurt him?” she slurs depressively.

 

“Try. See for yourself. Pull trigger.”

 

Beyoncé swallows loudly. “Are you su-”

 

“Shoot. Him.”

 

Beyoncé looks Will in the eye and he starts screaming, most likely pleading for her to stop, but she pulls the trigger, shooting him in the hand. Her body is tense, and she immediately starts crying as she witnesses Will’s pain. She struggles to get out of Jordan’s grasp but he holds her there.

 

Jordan aims the gun at Will’s shoulder. “27. Again.”

 

“I-” Beyoncé says.

 

Her sincerity breaks Jordan’s heart; he knows this isn’t who she is, but he doesn’t know any other way to let her know that she needs more than Will and being hit like she’s a dog that can’t heed to instruction. 

 

“Pull the trigger,” he snaps. 

 

Beyoncé does so, less terrified than before.

 

“Again.”

 

“Are you trying to kill him?” Beyoncé asks.

 

“He took your soul from you, no? Played as if he owned you,” Jordan says lowly into her ear, “As if he gave you the right to live and die. Tell me if I am wrong.”

 

Silence. He knows she understands.

 

“I thought so. Eye for eye. Tooth for tooth. Soul for soul,” Jordan encourages. “What did he take from you?”

 

“My…” she trails off.

 

Jordan shakes her roughly and she lets out a distressed noise- not because of him, but because of what he’s making her learn. “What the fuck did he take from you?” he drawls, sneering against her ear.

 

A broken sob comes from her. “My smile, I guess? My... everything.”

 

Jordan steps away from her, taking everything out of Will’s mouth and holding it wide open by gripping the top of his head and his bottom jaw tightly. “Take back your everything.”

 

Beyoncé looks as if she’s about to pass out, but surprisingly, she steps forward and sticks the barrel of the gun into Will’s mouth. 

 

“Take his life how he was about to take from you.”

 

Will screams, frantically trying to thrash around in his chair.

 

“You took everything from me. You stopped letting me talk to my family. You made me move into this ugly FUCKING cabin in bumfuck- _ nowhere  _ and for fucking WHAT?” Beyoncé asks, tears in her eyes, “So you could have to yourself? You only gave me enough money for the sorta-decent mani-pedis at the fucking shitty nail salon on fucking Fifth Street- which is AN HOUR FROM HERE- and the shitty wigs they sell at the only SORTA-DECENT hair place, WHICH IS ALSO AN HOUR FROM HERE, and ISN’T EVEN OWNED BY FUCKING BLACK PEOPLE ANYMORE, WILL. You think you know everything, you think you’re so smart because you’re older than fucking Moses and you comb your hair so it’ll cover your hairline and you can pretend it isn’t receding. You think you can run everybody. You think you can get away with everything. You think there’s no consequences for your actions. You act like you can do whatever you fucking want and you fucking can’t.  _ YOU DON’T OWN ME _ .”

 

She shoots him four times and collapses, a mere shell of a woman owned by everyone and none. She sobs, and Jordan picks her up off of the floor. He throws her over his shoulder, carrying her to her bed and giving her a glass of water that he spiked so that she’d pass out and remember as little from the past night as possible. He owes her that much, he thinks. He’d explain later; for now, he’s about to stick to scrubbing her ex-boyfriend’s blood off of her bedroom floor. 


	10. so glad i met you to walk the line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> like i said you know i'm almost dead /  
> you know i'm almost gone /  
> and when the drummer drums /  
> he's going to play my song /  
> to carry me along /

“Hey!” Beyoncé says, washing the dishes she’d used to make breakfast.

“Yes?” Jordan asks, drinking his coffee and looking out of the window in the kitchen.

“Will’s comin’,” Beyoncé tells him with a goofy giggle.

Jordan’s heart’ll break if she says another word.

What does he do- let her believe he’s coming and then be there for her when he a no-show, drinking girly ass wine with her and listening to her lament about her broken heart and just waiting forever until something happens to him or he just feels forced to tell the truth? Does he let her stay naive forever and make up a story about what happened? At first, he’d decided to wait to explain, but he’s about to cut his losses; Beyoncé is predictable. Jordan turns her away from the sink, his fingers under her chin so he can gently tilt her head up and make her look at him. He hears a soft “oh” come from her as he pulls her closer to him with his other hand. She can’t look him in the eye.

“What if you told him to go home?” he asks softly, and he’s entirely sincere- it terrifies him. He wants her to abandon the so-called love of her life, to say “Fuck it,” and betray the trust Will never had in her, to feel his skin on hers-

Beyoncé forces a dismissive noise and a laugh, pushing Jordan off of her. He can tell she doesn’t mean any of it, and he knew she would do it. “Boy, bye.”

“Am serious,” he says, leaning against the counter. “I see how you look my way, how your eyes linger when you-”

“BOY, you ‘bout goofy as hell. I have a man and--” She swallows, closing her eyes for half a second and making herself smile harder. “--I love him very much, and I miss him too.”

Fuck.

Jordan grabs her wrist roughly, and he sees immediate fear in her eyes. “Listen to me.”

Beyoncé tries to yank away from him and fails. “What the fuck is wrong with you today-”

“I killed your boyfriend.”

Beyoncé freezes before laughing shortly in disbelief. “You aren’t… you aren't funny.”

“No jokes, I show you body,” Jordan says, dragging her outside to where he’s covered Will up with dirt, grass, and with Mother Nature’s help, snow.

Beyoncé looks shocked for such a brief moment that it can only remind Jordan of a beat of a hummingbird’s wings- the next moment, she’s angry. Confused, even.

“I-I can’t do this anymore,” Beyoncé says, seemingly about to lose her mind, “You need to leave.”

“Bey-”

What is she doing? He helped her, he felt for her, he-

“Get out!” she screams, pushing at him, “GO!”

Jordan knows not to ever make anyone ask him anything another time, so he walks and doesn't look back when Beyoncé tells him how lucky he is that she isn't calling the police on him for murder. He's slowly learning that love exists, and it's nothing like he used to imagine; it's carrying others’ burdens and withholding things meant for them that weigh one down until they get pulled down so far that there's no choice but to lay down and let hell and high water come until they get rescued or die. For the first time in a long time, Jordan cries. It's silent, it blurs the vision of the snowy, open woods before him, and the tears are hot, contrasting with the cold of his face as they fall. Something depressingly warm inside of him, something caring, something that makes him feel for her, makes him turn around.

He sees Beyoncé getting dragged kicking and screaming to a truck, and he starts running to her before her screams can even register to his brain. When the truck starts driving away and guns are pointed at him from the windows and flatbed of the truck, he doesn't stop.

“Take another step and she dies!” a voice maniacally shouts from the truck that's steadily gaining speed. “Try to find her and we’ll make her wish she were dead.”

Jordan's heart stops and so do his feet, and he falls as if they were swept from under him. It's his fault- he's not surprised.


	11. tired.

Beyoncé’s head hurts so much that she thinks it might explode. All she remembers is pettily kicking Jordan out, getting snatched, regretting her decisions, present and past, more and more with every hand that tried to sneak its way up her thigh and every terrible mispronunciation of her name that sounded nowhere near as pleasant as Jordan's. Now she’s sitting in a disgusting room- maybe a basement- tied to a chair like she’s playing a hostage in some sort of B-list movie. She doesn’t know if she wants to roll her eyes or kill herself when she sees the ugliest man she’s ever laid eyes on (which has been every man that isn’t Jordan lately) through the window of the door she’s sitting in front of unlock it and step into the room, grinning at her when their eyes accidentally meet.

 

“Un chou à la crème,” a man says, forcing her head up and making her look at him. He’s fuck ugly; fuck, he’s so fucking ugly- “Mon chaton, you miss your boyfriend yet?”

 

“Boyfriend?” Beyoncé scowls and asks incredulously. How stupid. 

 

“It’s okay, no need to lie,” the man says, “You’re gonna be grateful for the open and understanding line of communication I’m trying to build here.”

 

Beyoncé rolls her eyes- she’s afraid to be verbally defiant because the lack of filter between her brain and her mouth is depressingly astounding- and the man’s strong hand comes across her cheek hard. “Fuck!” she exclaims, pained, trying to jerk her face away from his hand because he’s knelt down to grab it and look her in the eye. His own eyes are filled with the sickest look of joy and he furrows his brow in faux sympathy.

 

“Mon amour, I don’t want to have to do that again,” he says, “but if tough love is what you need to see that I’m not the one working against you, then so be it.”

 

Beyoncé doesn’t reply to him, she doesn’t even look him in the eye; she feels sick to her stomach. She can’t tell if the feeling is fueled by anger or a pure and disgusting feeling of defeat. 

 

“I’m tired,” Beyoncé lies. Maybe a bed and some alone time would help her.

 

“Close your eyes then, gorgeous,” the man says with a smile.

 

Beyoncé’s face twists into an expression of distaste. She spits in his face. “Fuck you.”

 

Beyoncé gets slapped and she’s crying, getting her head slammed against the wall behind her.

 

“Don’t make me do that again.”


	12. "take a deal or take a loss"

Beyoncé has a headache.

 

It’s a headache similar to the ones she got senior year of high school when the guy she used to get test answers from switched schools, forcing her to actually study for once. She’s studying the room she’s been in for what she assumes to be three days, making sure she remembers everything from the carved ticks in the wall to the specks of dust on the windows. She wants fucking out-  _ needs  _ to fucking get out- or else she’s gonna go insane. She wants a change of clothes more than anything because she’s stuck in an oversized flannel that reeks of cigarette smoke and wet dog. The four walls that surround her feel like they’re closing in with every passing minute; they’re plain cement, dingy, dirty, and there’s one window in the whole room. All Beyoncé can see out of it is the trunk of a large pine tree that blocks her view of everything else there is to be seen. Ever since her rough ordeal earlier, she’s been walking on thin ice and trying to get back in everyone’s good graces; they took the cute little Louboutin pumps she’d taken a year to save up for with them when they went into the other room. She wants them back. Badly.

 

“Honeybee!” a voice roars as the door is flung open with force. A different one than the first.

 

Beyoncé almost groans in frustration, but she opts to put on a decent tone instead. 

 

“Yes?”

 

A surly man that looks old enough to be her father walks into the room. The look on his face is a disbelieving one, probably because Beyoncé is deciding to be cooperative and kind for once. She forces a smile and because it’s so infectious (as always), the man smiles back. 

 

“You sound like little songbird,” he says, “I have news for you, Beyonté.”

 

Beyoncé has to grin entirely too hard to keep from laughing at how he fucks her name up. She feels bad; this man seems entirely too naive to be running with such a crude and terrible group. 

 

“What’s up?”

 

“We go into town today.”

 

“Oh?” Beyoncé is interested. Maybe she can escape. 

 

“Yes, we buy you new clothes,” the man says with a smile. 

 

Oh?

 

“What am I gonna wear there?” she asks, because a flannel and some underwear underneath isn’t a look- well, not unless she got her Louboutin pumps back. “I need shoes.”

 

“Hold on.”

 

Beyoncé watches him leave and begins to plan her escape; if they’re going shopping, they’re most likely going to the mall. Maybe she can ask for help. The man comes back with a pair of work boots that do not resemble her Louboutin pumps in ANY way and she is disappointed. 

 

“Try on.”

 

“Where are  _ my  _ shoes?”

 

“Try on,” he insists.

 

Beyoncé saves the tantrum she just considered starting for later. She doesn’t want to kick up shit unless it is absolutely necessary.

 

“What’s your name?” Beyoncé asks. 

 

“Nikolai.”

 

“Lemme ask you something, Nikolai. Why can’t I have MY shoes?”

 

“Try on.” He puts the shoes in front of her, ignoring her question.

 

Beyoncé’s switch has been flipped, her shit-up-kicking button has been smashed, her crying-until-the-room-floods-or-she-gets-her-way lever has been pulled, broken, and  _ stuck _ . She opens are mouth as if she has something to say before she closes it again and begins to force a good cry out of herself. 

 

“All I do is sit in this fucking room all day and I stopped complaining a long time ago! I don’t even talk about how all the clothes you give me smell like cigarettes and musty fucking balls or how none of you know how to cook a decent fucking bowl of  _ anything _ and I  _ SURELY  _ don’t say anything when you all come in here and make shitty small talk with me just so you can stare at me like fucking creeps, so the least you can do,” she screams, voice cracking because she’s now genuinely crying and doing it hard, too, “is let me have my fucking shoes!”

 

She continues crying; she’s scared. As much as she hates to admit it to herself, she misses Jordan. He’d know what to do, he’d know what to say, too, even if it came out funny because of the language barrier that sometimes held them back. She misses her home, she misses time to herself, she misses everything she used to know. On top of being homesick, she can’t seem to unpack anything surrounding the fact that she killed Will. She has his blood on her hands now- Jordan does too, and she might have  _ his  _ blood on her hands if he comes looking for her. 

 

“Shh, shh,” Nikolai says, annoyed, “I get your shoes, just stop your wailing.”

 

Beyoncé sniffles as she watches him walk away and lets her head hang until he comes back. She feels lost in a surreal world where every bad force in the world is turned against her and nobody is in her corner for the right reasons. However, her sadness momentarily stops when her shoes are set in front of her, looking beautiful as ever. She sniffles again.

 

“Thank you, Nikolai,” she says kindly, “You’re a sweet man.”

 

Nikolai grins and she could throw up right on her shoes.

 

“Can I take a shower? I’d rather not go out smelling like shit.”

 

-

 

“Do you really have to stand in here while I shower?” Beyoncé asks, looking at Nikolai, who’s standing with his back to her while she takes her clothes off and steps into the shower. “Not much I could really do in here except for, like, slipping and showering.”

 

“I watch. You shower.”

 

Beyoncé rolls her eyes, turning the water on and barely flinching at how it’s cold at first. She hums a tune as she showers with fucking Irish Spring and quickly gets bored despite being in a seemingly  _ very  _ nice (and spacious) shower.

 

“You got any music?”

 

“I can sing you Russian song.”

 

Nikolai proceeds to badly sing her a Russian tune. Beyoncé forces herself to cut him off even though it's somewhat amusing.

 

“Nevermind.”

 

-

 

Beyoncé sits in the front seat of a SUV with Nikolai and two other men whose names she either doesn’t know or can’t remember, and she’s wearing another oversized flannel, but her shoes make up for it. They turn what she’s wearing into a cute outfit, actually. The ride to the mall is shorter than the one she usually takes from her house, and when she sees the mall, she’s happy to see other humans.

 

“So, I’m thinking we hit the food court at some point since you guys absolutely suck at cooking,” Beyoncé suggests as they get out of the car.

 

“Maybe.”

 

“Why’re we shopping anyway? And  _ don’t  _ tell me it’s because you’re tired of seeing me in my underwear. I know that’s not the reason.”

 

“Mr. Andrey.”

 

“And who is that?” Beyoncé asks, brow furrowed.

 

“You met him when you first came here. He would like to have dinner with you tonight.”

 

_ Came _ . As if she just decided to drop by.  _ Met _ . As if she didn’t get slapped around like some rabid stray. She’s sick.

 

“Why’s he wanna have dinner with me? None of you can cook and I doubt that he can-”

 

“Do not be disrespectful,” Nikolai cuts in.

 

“Whatever,” Beyoncé says. “What’s the budget like?”

 

“Unlimited.”

 

Beyoncé stops in her tracks. “Repeat that?”

 

“Spend what you want- within reason.”

 

Beyoncé immediately makes a beeline for Barney’s. She piles dress upon dress on Nikolai and chats with associates. Balmain, Valentino, Marc Jacobs; she was in heaven. She holds a sleeveless gown up to her body.

 

“Thoughts, Nik?” Beyoncé asks.

 

“Beautiful.”

 

Beyoncé is in no way friends with Nikolai, but she appreciates his opinion, keeping it in mind when she goes to try it on. She does look amazing; the gown reaches the floor, it’s a shimmery silk blend. She steps out to show it off and Nikolai applauds. After trying her other choices on, she decides she wants all five of them. At the checkout, she looks at all the small items up for sale and sees lipstick. Automatically, she thinks about how funny it would be if she wrote a plea for help out on the dressing room mirror. She immediately reaches for four tubes and “spots” a dress to try on, much to Nikolai’s annoyance.

 

She rushes to snatch it up and runs to the dressing room, stripping down to her underwear and leaving her clothes on the floor to seem convincing before poking her head out to ask a sales associate for help. A woman comes in, young, bright, smiling. Beyoncé wishes she could relate.

 

“Hurry,” Nikolai urges, irritated.

 

“What do you need help with today, ma’am?” the woman, Debra, as stated on her name tag, asks.

 

“I was wondering if you could help me,” Beyoncé says as she begins to write on the mirror in lipstick, “close this dress up. It’s a complicated-looking thing.”

 

“Ma’am-”

 

Beyoncé shakes her head aggressively.

 

“I’m sorry, I cut you off. What were you saying?” she says kindly, continuing her writing.

 

“I was…” Debra trails off, trying to think quickly about what she could say that’s normal. “I was going to say that it’s really easy once you get the hang of it.” She messes with the back of Beyoncé’s dress, stopping when she sees that she’s finished writing. “Oh, this zipper hit a snag.”

 

_ I DON’T KNOW THE MEN WAITING FOR ME OUTSIDE. THEY’RE TRYING TO GET ME SOMETHING NICE TO WEAR BECAUSE THEY’VE SET ME UP WITH SOMEONE WHO’S ABUSED ME SEVERELY.  _

 

Debra looks at Beyoncé, who points at her cheek. There’s an ugly bruise on it; it’s turned a terrible purple as the days have gone by and it’s clearly hand-shaped.

 

_ GET HELP. _

 

Debra takes a picture of the bruises and the note on the mirror, sending them to more than one person. Beyoncé feels somewhat at ease.

 

“Oh, no, I’ve gotten lipstick all over this dress. I can pay for it,” Beyoncé lies.

 

Debra catches on. “Let me get you some napkins, you’re fine.” She slinks out of the stall and runs back with a roll of paper towels and a bottle of water, standing in front of the crack in the door so Beyoncé can do her best to wipe the lipstick off. 

 

“Thank you so much for understanding; I’m such a klutz,” Beyoncé says.

  
  


“Here’s the price of the dress.” Debra holds her phone up to Beyoncé’s face. 

 

_ Help’s on the way, you’re okay. _

 

Beyoncé almost cries. She gets most of the lipstick off of the mirror and smears some onto the dress before putting her clothes on and stepping out.

 

“Nik, we have to buy this, I messed it up,” Beyoncé says with an innocent frown.

 

“Is fine.”

 

It takes a few minutes for everything to be rung up, and they’re at the entrance of the store when the police come. 

 

“Sir, do you know this woman?” an officer asks.

 

Nikolai and his other men are at a loss for words. Beyoncé watches in stunned, joyful disbelief as they’re arrested; Nikolai quietly warns her that Andrey has eyes everywhere and she breaks down, sitting on the floor and crying. Debra and the other employees surround her, consoling her. Another officer asks her if she’s in good enough shape to answer some questions at the station and she agrees, writing Debra and the store’s number on her hand and going with the officer- not before covering up with the jacket Nik bought her. She’s paranoid as she walks to the officer’s car.

 

“He was probably trying to intimidate you, Miss Knowles. You’re safe.”

 

“Okay,” she said, too lazy to start a fuss. She’s too anxious, too.

 

-

 

Beyoncé doesn’t tell anyone she was harboring a fugitive before she got kidnapped. She simply says she was enjoying a nice time at a little cabin in the woods with her boyfriend (and that she was too shaken up to remember where it was) when she was snatched up while she was helping him get wood. She goes on from there, because the rest doesn’t need editing. She gives them her full name, her date of birth, her height, weight, everything.

 

The officers lay a set of photos of a random woman doing what looks like to be robbing a bank in town in front of her.

 

“What do these have to do with me?” Beyoncé asks, bewildered.

 

“Where were you on the morning of December 2nd, Miss Knowles?”

 

She can’t remember. 

 

"This sure looks an awful lot like you."

 

It doesn't, and the more she objects, the worse it gets. She’s put in a holding cell and she can’t tell if the terrifying atmosphere of the place or her utter bad luck is making her cry. She asks for a quarter; a kind, but very rude looking woman gives her one.

 

She throws all caution to the wind and places her faith in someone she doesn’t know that well.

 

She calls Jordan.


	13. goin' ballistic, why god?

Jordan has been day drinking, and he hasn’t done that since he dodged the draft and police were on their way to get him when he was 18. He can’t remember the last time he’s had anything other than bread, water, and alcohol, and he’s running out of two of those fast. He’s probably going to have to start hunting and sticking to water soon, and he loathes that because it’s not sitting around in a dark house wallowing in self hatred and pity and being up to his eyes in booze.

 

All he does is mull over the fact that Beyoncé is out getting God knows what done to her because he had to invade her life due to his own shortcomings. He foolishly made his problems her own and expected nothing to happen because he  _ liked   _ her. He’s fucking idiotic. He’s sick of his own shit and he can’t do anything about it. He can’t be some knight in shining armor for her, just like he couldn’t be for his mother. The reality of that is killing him.

 

He’s gotten through one Blue Ribbon, the weakest shit he’s ever had in his life, by the time the phone rings. He gets up with a groan to check the caller I.D., dumbly hoping Beyoncé will somehow call even though her phone’s sitting on the table where she left it. The police station is calling and something tells him to pick it up. He has nothing left to lose, at least he thinks he doesn’t, so he picks up, breathing down the receiver.

 

“Jordan?” he hears Beyoncé ask. She sounds shaken up, frightened, paranoid; beautiful nonetheless.

 

He’s afraid to reply. He stays silent. 

 

“Please. I’m in a holding cell at the police station near the mall, J, they’re saying I robbed a fucking  _ bank _ ,” she says shakily, frustrated and clearly upset, “I didn’t, I swear.”

 

He stops registering her actual words after a while because hearing how broken she sounds is making blind rage bubble up from the deepest parts of him. His eyes are pressed shut and he’s envisioning someone as fragile as her (compared to him) in the environment she’s in, helpless, probably traumatized worse than before she was in such a mess. He’s even more upset now, and he expects everything he sees when he opens his eyes to be stained red. He hears her talking about bond. She’s crying now. 

 

“Jordan, I don’t know who else to call. Please say something.”

 

“I am here,” Jordan says, his voice rough because he hasn’t put it to use in so long. 

 

Beyoncé’s crying worsens, but Jordan hears a laugh in the midst of it all.

 

“Oh, thank God. I thought something happened to you,” Beyoncé hurriedly explains, sniffling hard. “Jordan?”

 

His heart is breaking. Of all the times it’s happened to him, every single time it happens because of Beyoncé it feels worse than the last. 

 

“Yes?”

 

“I’m scared. I wanna go home.”

 

“I’m coming,” Jordan says quietly, turning the house upside down looking for her keys and the money she proceeds to tell him she’s kept hidden for if she ever tried to get away from Will. The thought of Will, though he’s deceased, makes Jordan’s blood boil. He’s already going through a plan; he’s grabbing at guns he’s stashed around the cabin over time (another thing jeopardizing her safety, but he can’t unpack that at the moment), shoving them in his pants, preparing for the worst. 

 

He finds himself unable to hang up on her while knowing the situation she’s in.

 

“Are you okay?” he asks, somewhat forcefully because he isn’t used to having enough openness to ask. 

 

Beyoncé sniffles. 

 

“I’m a little scared and people are staring me down, but…” She trails off. 

 

Jordan’s brow furrows. 

 

“...I’m okay.”

 

“I’m coming to get you,” Jordan reassures, “Do not cause trouble.”

 

Maybe Beyoncé needed something to cheer her up. He tried hard, he’s allowing himself some positivity. 

 

Beyoncé laughs; she sounds weary, very broken, but she sounds genuine, too. Jordan smiles halfway.

 

“I won’t.”

 

Jordan hangs up without saying goodbye- he figures it’s much easier. With that, he’s out the door, praying that there’s enough gas in Beyoncé’s car to get him where he needs to go. There’s half a tank left, but that’s only enough to get him to town, not back. However, he doesn’t have the time to stop and mull over specifics, so he puts the car in drive and speeds to the mall. 

 

He can’t get his mind off of the searing pain that caring has brought him; it’s cut him deep, right to the bone, even, and he can’t handle it. He puts effort into someone else for the first time and it backfires. Sometimes he thinks that he should’ve stayed in the same place emotionally and physically, but he didn’t have a choice either way. He knows there’s no use in crying over spilled milk, but God, he can’t help it. His knuckles grip the steering wheel until they’re a pure white, tears stinging at his eyes and threatening to spill. He’s on the highway when he forces himself to pull over. He takes the duffel bag he’d stuffed everything in and puts a gun in the waistband of his jeans before he looks around the car to find something, anything of Beyoncé’s to keep around. He’ll figure out a bullshit reason as to why later, he can’t be bothered to right now. He finds her sunglasses in the glovebox and puts them on. 

 

Thankfully, they don’t make him look too strange. He shuts the car off, locks it and gets out with his bag, walking to the nearest stop light and knocking on a woman’s car window. She lowers it just enough so that she can hear him, he guesses, but it doesn’t matter; he can see the apprehension in her eyes anyway, so he forces himself to at least appear to have good intent.

 

“Hello,” he says, forcing a probably horrible-looking smile, “where is the police station?”

 

She looks around nervously and more and more people are staring, probably thinking he’s some kind of beggar. He needs something to happen before people are too concerned with what’s happening. He gets the directions he needs and he punches the window and the sound of shattering glass and her screams compete to make his ears ring.

 

“Step out, please,” he begs quietly, his voice somehow strong despite. He knows people are scared, interested, terrified around him. That’s why he’s at least trying to keep her calm. It’s not working, and she’s exiting the car screaming. He pushes her out of the way to get into the car and speed off.

 

“Fuck!” he shouts, frustrated. 

 

The police station is closer than he thought; maybe it’s because he sped there, he can’t tell. He parks around the back of a nearby store and walks to the police station, sunglasses still on and bag slung around his shoulder. 

 

He walks in shooting at the lights in the ceiling, sparks raining down the heads of him and everyone else whose similarly taken due diligence to ruin Beyoncé’s life. If he’s unable to be forgiven, everyone else is joining him.


	14. i believe that you're gonna be forgotten any day now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just like the others told you.

Beyoncé’s losing it. Aside from using the phone, she’s stayed in the same spot, and everyone else has left. She can’t see the clock from where she sits; she doesn’t feel like getting up. Her head hurts from crying and she hasn’t eaten since she got here a while ago. She asked for one cup of water and was too beaten down to ask for another. She’s on her way to falling asleep and she’s grateful, because though it’ll be fitful, it’ll be some form of rest.

 

She misses Jordan the most- hearing his voice has carried her through the whole ordeal. All she has to do is wait, that’s what she keeps telling herself. It almost feels as if he’s with her. Maybe in spirit, she guesses. She misses being with him, even if he was somewhat cold. He was changing, and she was seeing to it. She wants to be there for him. Somewhat, she feels, she’s failed him.

 

Her thinking doesn’t keep her awake like usual; it tires her out to the point of making her nod off.

 

She’s startled out of her sleep by popping noises, soon registering them as gunshots. Frozen, she cries, but not audibly, she forces herself to swallow every cry that comes up in response to another bullet finding its way who knows where. A body falls in front of the cell and she almost screams, averting her eyes to her hands in her lap. She hears footsteps that stop just out of her line of sight that are followed by the sound of keys, followed by a gruff “fuck.” She sniffles, blinking hard and grimacing at the ringing in her ears and the tears in her eyes.

 

The footsteps approach the cell and she looks up. Her heart almost jumps out of her throat. It’s Jordan, and he’s holding a bloodied knife between his teeth, opening the cell and nudging the gate open. He lets the knife fall to the floor.

 

“Stop crying.”

 

He sounds cold, but she knows his heart, she knows that he was set on keeping his promise. She knows because that’s how she is, and she could only teach him what she knew. She’s getting up, and despite her legs feeling weak, she’s running to him, wrapping her arms around him after running into him with a soft  _ thud _ .

 

“Jordan,” she says, crying, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

“It is not your fault,” he says. 

 

He’s not showing any emotion, but she knows his heart.

 

“I-”

 

“No time. Do you trust me?” Jordan asks.

 

Beyoncé doesn’t even have to hesitate, nodding emphatically.

 

“Then start screaming. Please trust me,” he says, wrapping an arm around her neck and walking toward the back of the station, gun pointed ahead of them.

 

Beyoncé obliges, screaming at the top of her lungs as they walk. They come across a group of officers who draw their guns on him and try to talk him down. He shoots at two officers, wounding them fatally, and the last one standing shoots him in the shoulder and tries to call for backup. Jordan grunts in pain and shoots him, killing him. He nods toward the door and they both run. Beyoncé can’t even feel her legs because she’s so amped up. When they get to the car he parked a few feet away, it feels like she falls in it.

 

Immediately, she starts crying. 

 

“I’m so sorry, Jordan,” she says truthfully, “I… acted really shitty who knows how long ago and now both of us are in a bunch of bullshit. It’s my fault, I’m so sorry.”

 

Jordan’s eyes stay on the road ahead. They’re not on any main roads, probably because Jordan’s killed numerous people and is clearly driving a stolen car. She’s terrified, but she’s remembering trust is key. She doesn’t know how he still trusts her, but she’s thankful he does anyway.

 

“Is human life precious?” Jordan asks, hand gripping the steering wheel so hard that it turns white.

 

Beyoncé is a little afraid to answer his question but she knows that she cares for him, and she always believes honesty is important if you care for someone.

 

“Yes,” she answers, “It is to me.”

 

“That’s why you apologize.”

 

Beyoncé could almost cry again; it was, it’s the same reason why she tried to kick Jordan out in the first place. She’s empathetic to the point of trying to save the people that abuse her the worst and naive to the point of pushing people who intervene out.

 

“I’m…” Beyoncé starts.

 

“No, do not apologize again. I know it is. You do not seem to believe I think it is. But I do. I do not wish to take any life. However, it is how they say, dog eat dog. I do not believe most people should die. But I do not want to, and I do not want you to either. I should be one to apologize,” Jordan says, weary.

 

The world is on their shoulders, it’s always been, it seems, but right now it seems to be tipping a little more toward him; his exterior is strong as ever but she can hear the pain behind his words for once. She can feel the heaviness in every breath pushed out of him and she can almost reach out and touch the tensed-up muscles she sees and count them, one by one.

 

“I never would wish seeing such death and destruction on another, yet I chose to inflict that suffering on you, Beyoncé,” he tells her, clearly toeing the line between disturbance and disappointment. 

 

She finds herself slowly realizing that she’s in his world now, that she’s breathing the same toxic air that he is, viewing everything from his worldly, inescapable, inconsolable view. She’s learning his ways of life and she’s learning that he has no more learning to do from her because his days of learning how to be a contributing member of a normal society are long gone. He has to see the world as a den of wolves or thieves, and he’s caught in the middle for reasons she doesn’t know and doubts he can control, fighting until he’s free or too weak to go on. He learned how to treat others long ago, she now knows, but staying alive sometimes means that others come after yourself.

 

Beyoncé is pulled from her thoughts when she notices Jordan pulling over on the highway behind her own car. She watches as he mumbles what she guesses to be a prayer of thanks and gets his bag out of the backseat.

 

“Hide your face,” he says, giving her sunglasses back to her. “Get a gun.”

 

Beyoncé flinches at the command, but she does what she’s told nonetheless and gets into the passenger seat of her car while Jordan gets into the driver seat and speeds down the highway, weaving in and out of traffic.

 

“You aren’t afraid of the attention this is getting us?” she asks, nervous.

 

“No. You should not fear, either. I promise you we will be fine.”

 

She can’t tell if he’s sure of himself or not. If she makes it out of whatever this is alive, he’s gonna be forced to work on that.

 

“What makes you so sure, Jordan?”

 

“Prideful, my mother used to say to me. If it kills, I will at least perish knowing I have it.”

 

Beyoncé’ll die with trust, she thinks.


	15. hold in your breath 'til you thought it through, you fool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just him and the secret he was keeping /  
> if you just hold in your breath til you come back up in full /  
> hold in your breath til you thought it through, you foolish child

They make it to a gas station a long way out of town, past Beyoncé’s home by who knows how much. Home. The statement can be turned into a question now, Jordan thinks, with the way things are shaping up. To be honest, he wouldn’t mind being on the run with Beyoncé as much; sure, she’s a little weaker than him, and sure, she’s very much a woman- it’s not like that’s bad, but women are… the way they are- but she is a comrade nonetheless. 

 

“Are we- am I going home like, ever?” she pipes up from inside of the car as Jordan pumps gas, head down because the sun’s in his eyes and he doesn’t want to be seen. “I mean-“

 

He feels selfish for thinking it, but he doesn’t think he wants Beyoncé to go home- not without him, anyway. He’s used to her presence, how she’s one of the few things keeping him tied down. She makes his ugly pride swell, gives the ego he’s effortlessly pushed so far down something for its ever-growing roots to cling to so they can ready themselves to take him over.

 

“No,” he says bluntly, screwing the gas tank’s cap on a little too tight because he grows angry at the possibility of her going home and getting in trouble because of him. He can’t let anything happen again. He inhales deeply, looking at Beyoncé and releasing the breath slowly. “Not safe for you.”

 

Beyoncé frowns, but Jordan looks into her eyes, notices the way her mouth quirks up for half a second, and he knows her reaction is half-assed; why?

 

“I was expecting you to say that,” she says, fingers drumming on the door, “so what now?”

 

What now; it makes Jordan realize that he’s about to force Beyoncé into his way of living even more than before. She won’t have anywhere to permanently rest her head; she won’t have one for long, at least. Jordan’s already been accustomed to that but Beyoncé’s lived a different life until now- she’s been forced to stay rooted in the same spot like he’s been forced to run from normalcy and comfort. He doesn’t know how she’s gonna feel about everything changing so much at such a fast and random pace.

 

“Keep going,” he answers.

 

“Keep going? ‘Til what happens, exactly?”

 

***

 

Beyoncé’s looking at the stars through the sunroof, her legs on Jordan’s lap. He’s supposed to be keeping watch of her while she sleeps, but clearly she’s not and this means she’s gonna take a shorter shift when he has to sleep. The SUV they’re in is parked on top of an abandoned car garage out in the middle of what has to be nowhere because they haven’t seen another person in the town they’re in since they got there. Jordan finds it nice. Most places are so heavy with the effects of the touch of… whatever it is, that he can’t see many stars. Here, it’s the opposite. He thinks it’s greed that makes the stars hide away. Malls, restaurants, housing, banks. He knows it. They say so in history and science books and in legislative meetings of all kinds.

 

“I missed the stars,” Beyoncé says, breaking her hour-long silence.

 

Jordan has made a resolution to be better for her; one of the first steps to achieving that is more communication, which is hard considering who he is. However, he’s trying.

 

“Really?” he asks dumbly.

 

“Yeah,” she answers, peeling the last of her nail polish off and flicking it out of the window. “Between being trapped in that house to being in a cell, I haven’t been able to just… look up.”

 

“You do it often?” Jordan replies. 

 

“I did, yeah.” Beyoncé smiles wide, looking back up and grinning. “Every night. Like clockwork, I’d sit outside with the radio on and just look up ‘til my eyes got heavy.”

 

As their shifts switch, Jordan takes after Beyoncé and looks at the stars. He enjoys the peaceful void that they’re trapped in and wrapping him in as well. He starts looking for answers. When they’d stopped at a library a few miles back he’d noticed a poster peeling off of the wall, proclaiming in large, bright text that enlightenment starts within oneself. Jordan vowed to try it, if anything for Beyoncé, since she  _ was  _ going to be stuck with him for a while. 

 

First, he figures, he should think about how he’s feeling. He knows he feels a lot of hurt, but that’s about it. Maybe paranoia, perhaps… rage. Strong “maybe,” stronger “perhaps.” He mulls it over while he watches Beyoncé sleep fitfully until his shift ends at sun up.

 

His conclusion: he feels love; misguided, wild, terrible love. 

 

Beyoncé’s driving and looking around for a store to raid in the abandoned town they’re in. 

 

“What is love?” Jordan wonders aloud, hoping Beyoncé takes the bait and answers instead of reacting negatively. He’s a bad actor, but nonetheless, he still perseveres. 

 

“It’s a lot of things,” Beyoncé says, sighing somewhat whimsically. Jordan hears an overwhelming weariness in it as well. “It’s checking in with people you care about, using your last five to buy- holy shit.”

 

Jordan looks at what Beyoncé seems to be stunned by; there’s a little general store up the road they’re on. 

 

“Shit, yes,” Jordan confirms.

  
  


Beyoncé parks in front of the store without shutting the car off afterward and hops out to investigate. Jordan takes his gun out of the glovebox, puts it in his waistband, and starts trying to catch up to Beyoncé. He’s ready for anything, as he should be since he’s… him, and Beyoncé is on the run just the same as he is. However, when he walks into the store, he sees her chatting with the attendant in a friendly manner. His shoulders don’t relax, but his mind is somewhat eased by seeing her be so easygoing for a short moment in time. Jordan always feels bad about everything he’s put her through, but he never regrets stepping into her life. That fact makes him feel like a bad person, but at least he’s honest with himself and how he feels now. He sometimes wonders if she regrets the day he ever stepped into her life so forcefully, but he pushes the thought aside because there’s always a more pressing issue at hand. He’s a little thrown at the moment, feelings aside, because he was sure the store was gonna be as empty as the rest of the town and that it could make it possible for them to take what they needed and keep going. Jordan goes back to the car to shut it off. He’ll figure something out. He hopes so, at least.

 

“Jordan, come say hi!” Beyoncé says when he gets back into the store. 

 

Jordan stands a short distance from the counter, hand in the back pocket of his jeans so that it’s closer to his gun if something happens to come up. By the strange familiarity of this man behind the counter, he’s starting to think something might.

 

“Good afternoon,” Jordan says, looking at the wall of cigarettes behind the attendant. He feels uneasy about the look in his eyes when he nods at Jordan and says hello. “Malboro cigarettes, please. Turkish blend, I am feeling special today.”

 

“Jordan-”

 

He looks at Beyoncé as she speaks, shaking his head stiffly as the man turns his back. Beyoncé quiets. Part of his neck is exposed and Jordan sees a tattoo of an eagle, wings spread, and a wreath around it. While the attendant’s back is still turned, Jordan draws his gun. 

 

“I do not want you turning around, you hear me?” he says firmly, aiming at the attendant, “Hands up.” 

 

Jordan swears he hears a laugh come from the man, but he shakes his head in disbelief and he inhales deeply, nodding toward Beyoncé.

 

“Stock up. Make trips if you must.”

 

He sees fear in her eyes, but to his surprise, it disappears when she blinks and gets replaced with determination and, Jordan thinks, an ever-strengthening will. Beyoncé starts taking as much as she can into her arms, going to the car as fast as she can. 

 

“Come from behind the counter. Move slow, please, or I’ll be forced to use force,” Jordan orders the man in front of him.

 

He obliges, facing Jordan. He can’t see any fear in his eyes and that startles him and it begins to take him to darker corners of his mind that he leaves vacant for a good reason. It takes him back to the smell of fire and ash, the feeling of soot on his skin, the sounds of his mother screaming for her and his own life and all of the parents in the village doing the same for their own, the sight of his mother, cold and lifeless, just for him. He tastes the river water that he hid under, breath held just the same as it is today in the foolish hope that his mother will somehow magically come back. He’s sick to his stomach. 

 

Widowers, the mercenaries hired by his home country to kill the poor within it, county by county. As cruel and ruthless as they could possibly be, as methodical as they claimed to be, they missed Jordan and every day he regrets it. He watched people he loved waste away and his home become no more while he was spared, left alone. The only thing still standing other than him was that flag, red as the blood on doorsteps and in green grass, emblazoned with that eagle. 

 

Beyoncé is on her third trip to the car when Jordan speaks up. 

 

“What have you gotten?” he asks, keeping eye contact with the attendant. 

 

“Uh,” Beyoncé says, “LOTS of paper towels, cans of beans, veggies, all that stuff, drinks, beef jerky, candy-  sorry, I just  _ really  _ have been craving something sweet-”

 

“Is it enough for about…” Jordan blinks hard, trying to piece his words together properly. “A week?”

 

Beyoncé nods.

 

“That is fine. Go to the car,” Jordan says, not taking his eyes off of the man in front of him, “I will be there in a minute.”

 

Beyoncé doesn’t question him, walking out with what’s in her hands. Jordan bites back a scream of anger.

 

“Why are you here?” Jordan asks, trying his best to sound calm. His voice still sounds shaky despite his efforts.

 

“How do you think we’ve been able to find you all these years since you didn’t die like your bastard mother?” the man asks, smiling, “You always go west.”

 

Jordan takes a step forward, pressing the barrel of his gun into the man’s forehead and speaking quietly.

 

“How did you find us?”

 

“You’re predictable. You go the same way, looking for the same thing. We’re stringing you along; it’s too easy at this point, Jordan. Your friend’s helped as-”

 

Jordan shoots the man and watches him fall, hands and breath shaky. He steps outside catching a breath of fresh air before he goes to the car, opening Beyoncé’s door.

 

“We are not eating any of this.”

 

“What the fuck? Why?” Beyoncé asks, confused.

 

“I do not trust it,” Jordan answers, pointing at the dead body lying in the store’s doorway. “Mercenary. They are onto us.”

 

“Fuck!” Beyoncé shouts. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…  _ FUCK!”  _

 

“What?”

 

“He offered us a place to stay, and-”

 

“Drive.”

 

Jordan gets into the car and, since Beyoncé’s already in the driver’s seat, they’re soon on their way to the house she mentioned previously. It’s right up the road, just like the store was, and Jordan’s sick to his stomach over the place they’re in and the things he’s heard as well. When they arrive, he steps out, looking at the house with his brows furrowed. His eyes follow steps up to the porch and he notices a camera at the door. He shoots at it.

 

“Jordan-”

 

Jordan quickly shushes Beyoncé as he looks at the house in silence. As strong as he thought he was, as smart as he thought he was, he should’ve known there was no outsmarting or outrunning Widowers, especially when they’re out for blood and like a challenge. The weak willed are too easy for them; Jordan’s exactly what they want. Problems upon problems, too much distrust and definitely not enough hope. As he looks further, he realizes that this house is familiar; it looks the exact same as the one he grew up in. He almost collapses, but somehow he’s still on his feet. He can’t find whatever it takes in himself to cry and he feels as if he’s glued to the spot he’s in. The only thing that pulls him out of a reaction that’s bound to get worse is Beyoncé tugging on his shirt, startling him.

 

“Huh?”

 

“Jordan, I don’t like this. I don’t trust it.”

 

Jordan shakes his head. 

 

“I do not either,” he says, looking at his shoes because he can’t bear to look up again. In the grass, about a foot to his right, he notices grass that seems as if it’s been dug up and put back hastily. His jaw clenches. “Get me a bottle of water.”

 

“Please- never mind,” Beyoncé says, running to get water.

 

Jordan still wants to keep Beyoncé sane, so he obliges. 

 

“Please.”

 

“Thanks,” she says from the car.

 

“Stay there. Throw it,” Jordan orders.

 

Beyoncé does as she’s told and Jordan steps backward to the car carefully. When he thinks- hopes- he’s far enough, he throws the bottle at the grass hard. The explosion that ensues makes Beyoncé jump and yelp. Land mines.

 

“Jordan, what the fuck is-” she starts frantically.

 

Jordan has to think on his feet, which isn’t new. He hates it, though. It reminds him of the peace of mind he lacks. He jumps into the car, starting it while Beyoncé stands outside shocked and quiet.

 

“Come here,” Jordan snaps, loud and impatient. He watches as Beyoncé comes to the driver’s side and he lifts her into the car, making her sit on his lap. “You have to trust me.”

 

Beyoncé nods and screams as something goes off in front of them a few feet away. Jordan starts speeding ahead, swerving at random intervals and blocking out Beyoncé’s screams at the mines that go off a little too close even for him to be comfortable with.

 

Jordan hears Beyoncé let a blood-curdling scream out before he feels the car as well as himself and Beyoncé start tumbling. His ears pop and shards of glass hit his face and shoulder.

 

“Get down!” Jordan yells, subsequently feeling Beyoncé shrink into him. He wraps himself around her as much as possible. “Do not move for anything.”

 

He feels blood seeping through his clothes and Beyoncé shaking against him. The last thing he sees before blinding white is a crushed windshield, flames, and a skewed view of the mountains miles away.


End file.
